Dealing with a wide range of topics and covering different aspects of current importance in ATM, the papers place particular emphasis on automation and application of mathematical models and computational algorithms for ATM systems. The volume thus offers readers a summary of recent progress in such important areas as new operational concepts for automated ATM, evolution of traffic characteristics, ground-holding algorithms, ATC simulation facilities and a number of other aspects of ATC flow management.

Advanced Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems are being developed which contain time-based (4D) trajectory predictions of aircraft. Airborne flight management systems (FMS) exist or are being developed with similar 4D trajectory generation capabilities. Differences between the ATC generated profiles and those generated by the airborne 4D FMS may introduce system problems. A simulation experiment was conducted to explore integration of a 4D equipped aircraft into a 4D ATC system. The NASA Langley Transport Systems Research Vehicle cockpit simulator was linked in real time to the NASA Ames Descent Advisor ATC simulation for this effort. Candidate procedures for handling 4D equipped aircraft were devised and traffic scenarios established which required time delays absorbed through speed control alone or in combination with path stretching. Dissimilarities in 4D speed strategies between airborne and ATC generated trajectories were tested in these scenarios. The 4D procedures and FMS operation were well received by airline pilot test subjects, who achieved an arrival accuracy at the metering fix of 2.9 seconds standard deviation time error. The amount and nature of the information transmitted during a time clearance were found to be somewhat of a problem using the voice radio communication channel. Dissimilarities between airborne and ATC-generated speed strategies were found to be a problem when the traffic remained on established routes. It was more efficient for 4D equipped aircraft to fly trajectories with similar, though less fuel efficient, speeds which conform to the ATC strategy. Heavy traffic conditions, where time delays forced off-route path stretching, were found to produce a potential operational benefit of the airborne 4D FMS. Williams, David H. and Green, Steven M. Ames Research Center; Langley Research Center RTOP 505-66-41-02...

This volume is a compendium of papers presented during an Advanced Seminar on Air Traffic Control (ATC) that took place in Capri, Italy on October 28-31, 1991. The Seminar was' organized by the Progetto Finalizzato Trasporti of the Italian National Research Council. The papers presented in the Seminar dealt with a wide range of topics which are currently important in ATC. For example, there were papers on such subjects as recent developments in primary and secondary radar technologies, communications networks and protocols, and the future uses of satellite-based communications, navigation and surveillance in ATC. However, all the papers contained in the volume were selected exclusively from that set of papers that addressed some aspect of the main area of emphasis in the Seminar, namely massive data-processing requirements and computer intensive problems in ATC. Data-processing requirements in A TC have grown enormously over the years. Obviously, the rapid increase in air traffic volumes in most of the world is one of the factors that has contributed to this growth. However, two other developments have contributed much more significantly: first, the ATC system now collects (mostly automatically) immensely more "information per flight" than in the past; and, second, as the system's complexity increases and as it becomes more tightly interconnected geographically, so grows the need to communicate, process and "filter" the data presented to the system's various components.