Collision risk assessment of reduced aircraft separation minima in procedural airspace using advanced communication and navigation

• Main Authors: Cai, Qing, Ang, Haojie, Alam, Sameer
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Engineering::Aeronautical engineering; Air Transportation; Collision Risk
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/162177
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In order to maintain safety of air traffic operations, stringent aircraft separation standards are in place to reduce mid-air collisions. Note that the separation minima for aircraft flying in a procedural airspace (limited Communication, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) services) are normally larger than those for a non-procedural airspace. With the advancement of CNS technologies such as space-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast/Contract (ADS-B/C), large separation minima may be reduced in procedural airspaces. It is of great significance to know the upper limit of the Reduced Separation Minima (RSM) for a procedural airspace and the corresponding consequences on collision risk with specifics of the advanced ADS-B and control intervention model. In this work, an interactive software is first developed for collision risk estimation. This software integrates the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) collision risk models for lateral and longitudinal collision risk calculation for the Singapore procedural airspace. Results demonstrates that the lateral and longitudinal collision risk of Singapore procedural airspace with respect to current control procedures meet the ICAO Target Level of Safety (TLS) standard. Moreover, the feasibility of reducing the horizontal separations implemented to the Singapore procedural airspace with respect to advanced CNS techniques is investigated. It is found that if advanced CNS technologies are applied, then the current 50-NM lateral and longitudinal separation standards can be reduced to 22 NM and 20 NM, respectively, to meet the TLS standards based on current demand. A method is then devised to expand the traffic demand by p% based on existing traffic data. Collision risk is then analyzed based on expanded demands by varying p from 10 to 200 to explore the corresponding minimum horizontal separations. It is found that the minimum lateral separation can be reduced from 50 NM to be within the range of [23, 31] NM for p ∈ [10,200], while the minimum longitudinal separation can be reduced from 50 NM to 20 NM for p ∈ [10,200], while the horizontal collision risk still meets the TLS standards.