Conflict-free conformance to en route flow rate constraints

Strategies are presented for speed control and path stretching in an en route sector subject to an output flow rate restriction. Control laws are derived to maintain aircraft separation while conforming to a piecewise-constant flow restriction profile. These laws are demonstrated in a simulation using simple models of sector geometry, traffic flow and aircraft dynamics. Controlling aircraft trajectories can only temporarily solve the problem of accommodating a sector input rate larger than the constrained output rate. Hence there is a maximum number of aircraft that can be handled before a control limit is reached and the flow constraint is back propagated to the upstream sector. This maximum number, called sector accommodation, is derived analytically for a uniform input flow. © 2002 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.