Multi Agent Path Planning Approach to Dynamic Free Flight Environment

For years the air traffic routes have been fixed by the air traffic controllers on the basis of pre-acquired knowledge. Free flight air traffic management is a solution to move the decision making process for route choices from air traffic controllers to the cockpit. The basic idea is optimize the flight routes in the consideration of multiple objectives .i.e. the optimal path is decided based on a set of dynamic inputs. The problem involves a number of potentially conflicting objectives such as optimizing fuel usage, weather conditions, customer comfort and traffic density. Fuzzy logic controller is used in flight control algorithm to implement human procedural knowledge effectively. Particularly type-2 fuzzy logic is used to handle uncertainty effectively. Hybrid ant colony optimization is used to handle real time dynamic environment and path planning. The free flight environment realized using Hybrid Ant Colony Optimization with a multi-agent approach will project a new era of air traffic management. It will enable the pilots to make route decisions based on the dynamic data available. The autonomous control is always dependent on level of intelligence. The Agent based approach and type-2 fuzzy together with Hybrid Ant Colony Optimization technique is used to achieve next level of intelligence. KeywordsMulti-agent, Type-2 fuzzy logic, Hybrid ant colony optimization, Multi objective.