A TIME-BASED CONCERPT FOR TERMINAL-AREA TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

H. Erzberger, L. Tobias


Abstract

An automated air-traffic-management concept that has the 
potential for significantly increasing the efficiency of 
traffic flows in high-density terminal areas is discussed. 
The concept's implementation depends on the techniques for 
controlling the landing time of all aircraft entering the 
terminal area, both those that are equipped with on-board 
four dimensional guidance systems as well as those aircraft 
types that are conventionally equipped. The two major 
ground-based elements of the system are a scheduler which 
assigns conflict-free landing times and a profile descent 
advisor. Landing times provided by the scheduler are uplinked 
to equipped aircraft and translated into the appropriate four 
dimensional trajectory by the on-board flight-management 
system. The controller issues descent advisories to unequipped 
aircraft to help them achieve the assigned landing times. 
Air traffic control simulations have established that the 
concept provides an efficient method for controlling various 
mixes of four dimensional-equipped and unequipped, as well as 
low-and high-performance, aircraft.