Status of Transferring NASA's Terminal Sequencing and Spacing Technologies to the FAA

摘要

Safely and efficiently sequenc- ing and spacing aircraft arrivals in a dense terminal radar approach control (TRACON) airspace is a challenging multi-constraint control problem. Arrivals must enter the TRACON at a prescribed altitude and speed and continue reducing altitude and speed, and eventually merge with other arrivals at key waypoints, and finally land at the assigned runway with the appropriate wake vortex separation. Weather uncertainty, the use of multiple arrival runways across multiple airport configurations, and interactions with other aircraft within the TRACON airspace, all contribute to the complexity of safely and efficiently managing aircraft arrivals. The addition of performance-based navigation (PBN) procedures, including disparate user investment in PBN capabilities, adds to this complexity. Managing the arrivals with these additional constraints has become increasingly more difficult as the FAA continues to add PBN procedures requested by the airline community. The effect is workload increases, runway throughput decreases, and TRACON controllers (hereafter referred to as terminal controllers) typically issue radar vectors to absorb delay that results in additional fuel consumption.