Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gharibi, Mirmojtaba, Clarke, John-Paul
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.04281
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909451159601152
author Gharibi, Mirmojtaba
Clarke, John-Paul
author_facet Gharibi, Mirmojtaba
Clarke, John-Paul
contents We provide a general and malleable heuristic for the air conflict resolution problem. This heuristic is based on a new neighborhood structure for searching the solution space of trajectories and flight-levels. Using unsupervised learning, the core idea of our heuristic is to cluster the conflict points and disperse them in various flight levels. Our first algorithm is called Cluster & Disperse and in each iteration it assigns the most problematic flights in each cluster to another flight-level. In effect, we shuffle them between the flight-levels until we achieve a well-balanced configuration. The Cluster & Disperse algorithm then uses any horizontal plane conflict resolution algorithm as a subroutine to solve these well-balanced instances. Nevertheless, we develop a novel algorithm for the horizontal plane based on a similar idea. That is we cluster and disperse the conflict points spatially in the same flight level using the gradient descent and a social force. We use a novel maneuver making flights travel on an arc instead of a straight path which is based on the aviation routine of the Radius to Fix legs. Our algorithms can handle a high density of flights within a reasonable computation time. We put their performance in context with some notable algorithms from the literature. Being a general framework, a particular strength of the Cluster & Disperse is its malleability in allowing various constraints regarding the aircraft or the environment to be integrated with ease. This is in contrast to the models for instance based on mixed integer programming.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_04281
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Cluster & Disperse: a general air conflict resolution heuristic using unsupervised learning
Gharibi, Mirmojtaba
Clarke, John-Paul
Robotics
Machine Learning
Physics and Society
We provide a general and malleable heuristic for the air conflict resolution problem. This heuristic is based on a new neighborhood structure for searching the solution space of trajectories and flight-levels. Using unsupervised learning, the core idea of our heuristic is to cluster the conflict points and disperse them in various flight levels. Our first algorithm is called Cluster & Disperse and in each iteration it assigns the most problematic flights in each cluster to another flight-level. In effect, we shuffle them between the flight-levels until we achieve a well-balanced configuration. The Cluster & Disperse algorithm then uses any horizontal plane conflict resolution algorithm as a subroutine to solve these well-balanced instances. Nevertheless, we develop a novel algorithm for the horizontal plane based on a similar idea. That is we cluster and disperse the conflict points spatially in the same flight level using the gradient descent and a social force. We use a novel maneuver making flights travel on an arc instead of a straight path which is based on the aviation routine of the Radius to Fix legs. Our algorithms can handle a high density of flights within a reasonable computation time. We put their performance in context with some notable algorithms from the literature. Being a general framework, a particular strength of the Cluster & Disperse is its malleability in allowing various constraints regarding the aircraft or the environment to be integrated with ease. This is in contrast to the models for instance based on mixed integer programming.
title Cluster & Disperse: a general air conflict resolution heuristic using unsupervised learning
topic Robotics
Machine Learning
Physics and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.04281