Sector-based Distributed Scheduling Strategy in Air Traffic Flow Management

:Air traffic flow scheduling is an important component in air traffic control system and has significant effects on the safety and efficiency of air transportation. In this paper, we propose a sector-based distributed air traffic flow scheduling strategy to minimize the airport arrival delay. The scheduling problem is formulated based on a simplified air traffic system model consisting of sectors, air-routes, waypoints and airports. A cell transmission flow dynamic model is adopted to describe the system dynamics and some safety-based constraints such as the sequence of en-routed aircraft and the limitations of cruising speeds are considered in the system model. To overcome the computational complexity involved in the centralized structure, we propose a sector-based distributed approach based on Lagrangian relaxation. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheduling strategies.