Design and Simulation Methodology to Improve the Performance of Airspace Tube Networks

Abstract

The concept of high-traffic corridors and tube networks has been proposed to meet air traffic demand in the future. Several airspace tube network designs are available using different approaches. The utility of any transcontinental air traffic tube network is limited by the hub and spoke nature of air traffic in the US and the existence of over 50% of commercial flights with ranges less than 500 miles. Therefore, this paper describes an improved design methodology that accounts for the nature of the domestic air traffic that utilizes this network, characterizes the utility of a given tube network, and demonstrates possible limits in the efficacy of any tube network with current air traffic. Simulation results show that the number of aircraft flying within the redesigned tube network is comparable to the number flying through the other tube networks; however, since the length of the redesigned tube network is roughly half the length of the next-shortest tube network, the instantaneous occupancies are approximately twice that of the other tube designs.

Original document

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

• http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/00af/ba2dc8204114d54a74ff97f6a57dab37d6d5.pdf

• http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/6.2010-8288,

http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/6.2010-8288

• https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/6.2010-8288,

https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2317451743