Distributed Air Traac Flow Management

The Air Tra c Flow Management (ATFM) service is designed to ensure an optimum ow of air tra c to or through areas within which tra c demand at times exceeds the available capacity of the Air Tra c Control (ATC) system. It protects air tra c control from overload situations which are potentially dangerous to the safety of air tra c. It also ensures the maximum utilization of ATC capacity in all situations. This work concentrates on the tactical planning phase that involves measures taken on the same day to ensure maximum, but not over utilization of air tra c resources. We describe the way Arti cial Intelligence (AI) and Distributed Arti cial Intelligence (DAI) techniques were modi ed, integrated and applied to solve the problem of air tra c ow management. Basically, we have separated the local operations of scheduling and monitoring from the global ow management. We use a Real-TimeA* (RTA*) algorithm for scheduling and a modi ed contract-net for negotiating the ow between the airports. We use an abstract measurement for describing the level of congestion and as a basis for negotiation. Thus the system continuously generates, monitors and updates solutions.