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A cooperative multi-agent approach to free flight

Published: 25 July 2005 Publication History

Abstract

The next generation of air traffic control will require automated decision support systems in order to meet safety, reliability, flexibility, and robustness demands in an environment of steadily increasing air traffic density. Automation is most readily implemented in free flight, the segment of flight between airports. In this environment, centralized control is impractical, and on-board distributed decision making is required. To be effective, such decision making must be cooperative. Satisficing game theory provides a theoretical framework in which autonomous decision makers may coordinate their decisions. The key feature of the theory is that, unlike conventional game theory which is purely egotistic in its structure, it provides a natural mechanism for decision makers to form their preferences by taking into consideration the preferences of others. In this way, a controlled form of conditional altruism is possible, such that agents are able to compromise so that every decision maker receives due consideration in a group environment. Simulations demonstrate that reliable performance can be achieved with densities on the order of 50 planes per ten thousand square miles.

References

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National Research Council Panel on Human Factors in Air Traffic Control Automation, C. D. Wickens, A. S. Mavor, R. Parasuraman, and J. P. McGee, Eds., The Future of Air Traffic Control: Human Factors and Automation. National Academy Press, 1998.
[2]
T. S. Perry, "In search of the future of air traffic control," IEEE Spectrum, vol. 34, no. 8, pp. 18--35, August 1997.
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L. Geppert, "Lost radio contact leaves pilots on their own," IEEE Spectrum, pp. 16--17, November 2004.
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W. C. Stirling, Satisficing Games and Decision Making: With Applications to Engineering and Computer Science. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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J. Pearl, Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems. Morgan Kaufmann, 1988.
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F. R. Kschischang, B. J. Frey, and H.-A. Loeliger, "Factor graphs and the sum-product algorithm," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 47, pp. 498--519, 2001.
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J. Krozel, M. Peters, K. D. Bilimoria, C. Lee, and J. S. B. Mitchell, "System performance characteristics of centralized and decentralized air traffic separation strategies," Fourth USA/Europe Air Traffic Management Research and Development Seminar, 2001.
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D. Dugail, E. Feron, and K. Bilimoria, "Stability of intersecting aircraft flows using heading change maneuvers for conflict avoidance," American Control Conference, 2002.
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S. Resmerita, M. Heymann, and G. Meyer, "A framework for conflict resolution in air traffic management," in IEEE Conf. on Decision and Control, 2003, pp. 2035--40.
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cover image ACM Conferences
AAMAS '05: Proceedings of the fourth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems
July 2005
1407 pages
ISBN:1595930930
DOI:10.1145/1082473
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 25 July 2005

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Author Tags

  1. air traffic control
  2. distributed control
  3. free flight
  4. satisficing

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  • (2023)Optimal Aircraft Conflict Resolution in Free Flight Using Simulated Annealing and Genetic AlogorithmsJournal of Aerospace Sciences and Technologies10.61653/joast.v64i2.2012.418(97-107)Online publication date: 2-Aug-2023
  • (2022)Concept of Separation Method Between Aircraft in the Transition PeriodWUT Journal of Transportation Engineering10.5604/01.3001.0016.1444135(5-16)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2022
  • (2020)Visual Flight Rules-Based Collision Avoidance Systems for UAV Flying in Civil AerospaceRobotics10.3390/robotics90100099:1(9)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2020
  • (2020)Satisficing Game Approach to Conflict Resolution for Cooperative Aircraft Sharing AirspaceBig Data10.1089/big.2020.0155Online publication date: 1-Dec-2020
  • (2019)Sacrifice as Paradigm of Robot Behavior in GroupCybernetics and Automation Control Theory Methods in Intelligent Algorithms10.1007/978-3-030-19813-8_25(244-254)Online publication date: 10-May-2019
  • (2018)Collective Behavior Strategy Development Based On Friendship of RobotsProceedings of the 2018 4th International Conference on Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering10.1145/3191477.3191479(38-42)Online publication date: 7-Feb-2018
  • (2018)Negotiated Decentralized Aircraft Conflict ResolutionIEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems10.1109/TITS.2017.269382019:1(81-91)Online publication date: Jan-2018
  • (2017)The Generic Resolution Advisor and Conflict Evaluator (GRACE) for Detect-And-Avoid (DAA) Systems17th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations Conference10.2514/6.2017-4485Online publication date: 5-Jun-2017
  • (2017)Cooperative vehicles for robust traffic congestion reduction: An analysis based on algorithmic, environmental and agent behavioral factorsPLOS ONE10.1371/journal.pone.018262112:8(e0182621)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2017
  • (2014)A strategic flight conflict avoidance approach based on a memetic algorithmChinese Journal of Aeronautics10.1016/j.cja.2013.12.00227:1(93-101)Online publication date: Feb-2014
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