Near-to-mid Term Solution
for Efficient Merging of Aircraft on Uncoordinated Terminal RNAV Routes
It is anticipated that controllers will continue to vector traffic
for spacing in the near term where there are Required Navigation Performance
(RNP) area navigation (RNAV) routes that merge prior to the final approach
or on the final approach. Under moderate to heavy demand, this will
negate many of the efficiency, throughput, and predictability benefits
of keeping aircraft on the RNP RNAV routes.
Given the current level of metering and aircraft equipage, existing
decision support automation and avionics capabilities can be used to
keep aircraft on the routes and maintain benefits. In an earlier paper,
we presented a suite of tools and concepts that address the merging
and spacing problems arising from structured RNAV and RNP routes in
the terminal environment. This suite of tools and concepts is referred
to as Spacing of Performance-based Arrivals on Converging Routes (SPACR).
The initial set of tools and concepts addressed the near-term merging
and spacing problem, relying on existing cockpit and ground automation
capabilities. In this paper, the tools and concepts are extended to
the mid-term, requiring modest modifications of existing capabilities.
SPACR includes applications of cockpit capabilities such as FMS Offsets
and Required Time of Arrival (RTA) and ground automation functionalities
such as the embedded ghosting function in the Automated Radar Terminal
System (ARTS), Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS),
and new STARS Graphical User Interface (GUI) functionalities. The previous
paper presented an operational concept along with analytic and human-in-the-loop
experiments for SPACR based upon the Converging Runway Display Aid (CRDA),
a ground-based decision support tool, and the lateral offset capability
in the cockpit.
In this paper, we extend SPACR to include a potential use of RTA and
present an operational concept using it in conjunction with lateral
offsets and CRDA. We present analytic results related to ground computation
of RTA and matching that with the airborne computation. Results of human-in-the-loop
experiments related to using SPACR to manage the final merge using only
CRDA are reported. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues.
