Data Mining and ML Techniques Supporting TBS Concept Deployment

Our paper “Data Mining and Machine Learning Techniques supporting Time-based Separation Concept Deployment”, co-written with Eurocontrol and WaPT, has been accepted by the 37th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) in London, U.K.

The paper presents two methods to allow air traffic controllers to deliver separation minima accurately and safely, on the basis of time intervals instead of distances.

Importantly, in strong headwind conditions,  the aircraft’s groundspeed during approach decreases, meaning that keeping the distance-based separation method results in  lower landing rates. At a time of intensified air traffic, this situation leads to considerable delays at airports with significant costs to operators and travellers.

With the new methods presented in the paper, capacity can increase by up to 14% in strong wind conditions, and by up to 8% in moderate wind conditions.

The paper has been presented in September at DASC 2018. If you wish to go deeper into the subject, do not hesitate to contact our research department at research@euranova.eu.

The abstract

The Time-Based Separation (TBS) concept consists in the definition of separation minima for aircraft on the final approach to a runway based on time intervals instead of distances, as applied in Distance-Based Separation (DBS) operations.

TBS allows for dynamic distance separation reductions in strong headwind conditions so as to preserve time spacing across all wind conditions. However, TBS application entails the use of a support tool providing separation distance indicators depending on the applicable time separation minimum, the aircraft speed profile which also depends on the headwind conditions.

This paper details two methodologies allowing a system to compute those TBS indicators so as to allow Air Traffic Controllers to accurately and safely deliver the TBS minima using a separation delivery support tool. The first approach is based on “analytical” data mining and modelling whereas the second one is based on a Machine Learning (M/L) procedure.

In the framework of the deployment of the TBS concept in Vienna airport (LOWW), those approaches are developed and tested using a database covering one year of traffic and corresponding local meteorological data.

The operation of TBS with indicators computed using either approaches leads to substantial diminution of time separations compared to a DBS strategy. However, given the large uncertainties related both to leader and follower aircraft speed profiles, the buffers could be designed only for the most frequent pairs. With the M/L approach (resp. the “analytical” approach), the capacity benefits related to the application of TBS with a separation support tool are of the order of 8% (resp. 2%) in moderate wind conditions, and up to 14% (resp. 10%) in strong wind conditions.

De Visscher, I.; Stempfel, G.; Rooseleer, F. & Treve, V.; Data mining and Machine Learning techniques supporting Time-Based Separation concept deployment, in 37th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), pp 594-603, London, UK, September 23-27, 2018