Effect of Aircraft Self-Merging in Sequence on an Airborne Collision Avoidance System

Abstract

This air traffic management research study analysed the interaction between a potential future airborne spacing application and an existing Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS). The time-based airborne spacing application ‘merge behind’ was simulated in fasttime for a range of merge angles (45°, 90°, 135° and 180°), target spacing times (60 and 90 s) and altitudes (6,000 and 11,000 feet) under turbulent wind and extreme entry conditions. Trajectory pairs were analysed for potential collision alerting conditions using an ACAS simulator based on Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) II version 7 logic. Results show how, with realistic turn anticipation, the TCAS estimated time to go to Closest Point of Approach (CPA) decreased as merge angle was increased and as target spacing was reduced, but still remained above the Traffic Advisory (TA) and Resolution Advisory (RA) thresholds for the duration of all trials.

Original document

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

• http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/143a/4e0427be9c46837f307d6e62abb4380bf626.pdf

• http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/6.2004-4994,

http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/6.2004-4994

• https://www.eurocontrol.int/eec/gallery/content/public/document/eec/conference/paper/2004/004_Self-merging_in_sequence_and_ACAS.pdf,

https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/6.2004-4994,

https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2156231474