Trajectory management driven by user preferences

The evolution of the Traffic Flow Management (TFM) and Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems towards Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) is constrained by the need to support a mixed fleet of aircraft for the foreseeable future. Trajectory synchronization and negotiation in particular are key enablers of TBO that need to take into account both the advanced capabilities in existing and future Flight Management Systems (FMS), and the limitations in performance and capabilities of legacy aircraft. Trajectory management systems will have to address the challenges imposed by this reality. Lockheed Martin and General Electric (GE) have established a Joint Strategic Research Initiative (JSRI) to develop technologies that can efficiently address the challenges of trajectory management. In this paper, we describe a user preference driven trajectory management concept that was developed under the JSRI. The idea consists of providing flight-specific cost information to Decision Support Tools (DST) used by controllers for strategic conflict resolution and schedule management. The cost of operating a flight may be decomposed into the cost of fuel and other direct and time related costs (such as crew pay, aircraft maintenance, or connecting passengers). In current operations, there is no practical mechanism to make this information known to the ground automation (or the controller) which needs to make changes to the business trajectory; moreover, much of this information is considered proprietary or sensitive by the operators, making it difficult or impossible to determine the true cost impact of modifications to the reference business trajectory. However, it is precisely the overall cost of operations that should be driving the decision process. A mechanism has been developed to extract the effective operating cost from the FMS and to make that information available to ground DSTs. Cost information is encoded in coefficients that do not reveal operator specific business strategies that may be considered proprietary. This enables the ground controller (and DSTs) to make an informed decision that may increase the likelihood of operators business objectives being accommodated, and would allow operators to better inform ATC's decisions such that the impact on the business objectives are minimized when changes are required. The encoding of cost information is made in a compact way so that communication band-width requirements are reasonable.