A Comparative Analysis of Terminal Area Navigation and Conventional Standard Arrival Routes with Cellular Automata

Abstract

Aircraft arrival at airports is limited by the physical configuration and layout of the terminal maneuvering area (TMA), which might result in a bottleneck. In a bottleneck situation, navigation is made difficult because arriving aircraft will need special considerations to manage congestion and guarantee safety. In addition, the operating cost of airline operators increases with higher fuel consumption encountered in the extra airborne time. Likewise, passengers incur more travel time with the additional arrival delays. Traditional arrival adopts conventional standard arrival route (STAR), with trajectories that are rigidly coordinated by air traffic controller (ATC). However, a more flexible approach to general navigation has also been introduced, namely the area navigation (RNAV), which makes provision for flexibility in aircraft path selection. This flexibility is enabled by abstract navigational elements, namely waypoints that are unlike conventional navigational aids (NAVAIDs). We look at a modeling framework that juxtaposes the key elements of the traditional STAR (procedure-based) navigation and RNAV (performance-based) navigation. We adopt the cellular automata (CA) framework that has the capability to model the dynamic interaction between aircraft, inherent environmental uncertainties, and arrival route as defined by waypoints. To this end, we develop a modeling environment that enables a fair comparison between these two approaches under similar conditions to determine their respective viability. The effect of the number of waypoints in the TMA under different traffic conditions is illustrated using the relationship between TMA occupancy, traffic flow, and the landing rate. Results show that RNAV navigation exhibits more sensitivity to waypoint distribution within the TMA in terms of throughput, compared to STAR navigation. STAR navigation, on the other hand, demonstrates inherent latency that allows for higher capacities, albeit at the risk of initiating abrupt jamming when a high number of waypoints are active. Consequently, we are able to establish guidelines that justify the adoption RNAV over STAR and vice versa. Furthermore, we also identify performance disparities between them, and where each approach is desirable.