Application of Aircraft Derived Data in the 4D-CARMA Trajectory Predictor

Abstract

Increasing traffic at major airports has shown a need for computer-based systems to support air traffic controllers. The DLR (German Aerospace Center) Institute of Flight Guidance has developed 4DCARMA (4-Dimensional Cooperative Arrival Manager), a tool that assists in establishing and managing a sequence of arriving aircraft. It generates this sequence based on optimisation of different criteria, assigns a target arrival time to each aircraft and computes the corresponding trajectory to be flown. Guidance advisories are then shown to the controller accordingly. To compute aircraft trajectories, performance data are needed which are extracted from the Eurocontrol BADA (Base of Aircraft Data) database. As it uses generic values that rarely match the actual situation (aircraft mass etc.), this master thesis aims at improving the performance calculations by evaluating radar recordings of flown approaches and preferred trajectories sent from the aircraft to the ground unit that represent the optimum vertical and horizontal path as calculated by the on-board Flight Management System. Performance parameters derived from the available flown and preferred trajectories are compared to BADA with the goal of deducing correction values. As preferred trajectories are sent via air-ground data link, this thesis also presents different communication systems like ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) or VDL (VHF Digital Link) and compares their performance in the given context.