Success for Prof. Hartmut Fricke and his team from the Chair of Air Transport Technology and Logistics at the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences at TU Dresden: The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved the funding application on the topic of "Integrating Safety Metrics into the Arrival Capacity Management of large Aerodromes".

The 3-year project is about measuring safety and integrating it as a key performance indicator in the arrival management of large aerodromes. “The aim is to achieve further increases in the utilisation of existing infrastructure capacities (e.g. airspace and runway capacities) - while still observing and complying with applicable international safety requirements and standards," explains Prof. Hartmut Fricke.

The starting point for the project is the current capacity-critical approach control at (major) airports. It is subject to constant fluctuations in operational use due to weather and traffic composition. At present, only operational performance indicators are recorded and safety is put "in front of the bracket" by means of always conservative application of rules: Thus far, the system has been safeguarded by conservative - and thus capacity-restrictive - rules on separation values between aircraft. As a result, the system always works in a safe, but not overall optimal operating state.

Increasing the degree of automation in air traffic control

This is where the TUD project comes in: The current capacity-critical approach control is integrated into an overall optimisation process with a special focus on air traffic safety by means of safety analysis procedures developed at the professorship. By integrating the safety assessment as an online procedure, a tactical level is to be achieved on which safety analyses are constantly incorporated into the performance assessment - and thus additional airspace and runway capacities can be used in operations. Methodically, multi-objective optimisation procedures are applied to an agent-based fast-time simulation available at the professorship. In addition, research will also be conducted into how the degree of automation in air traffic control can be increased through the use of such a procedure and how this increasing automation affects traffic safety. 

The designed safety/performance analysis model is to be finally made capable of forecasting with the help of machine learning methods and system modelling procedures in order to enable the necessary foresight of the coming traffic situation. "We want to validate the system for a German airport as an example," says Hartmut Fricke. To this end, the professorship is cooperating with DFS - Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH and the airports of Munich and Frankfurt.