Hierarchical, distributed and multiagent control for ATM

1
Hierarchical, distributed and multi-agent control
for ATM
B. De Schutter Control Lab, Fac. ITS, Delft Univ.
of Technology http//lcewww.et.tudelft.nl/deschut
t

• Centralized vs decentralized control
• Hierarchical control
• Free flight
• Hierarchical multi-agent control

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Centralized vs decentralized control

• on-line real-time control
• modular, scalable
• locally optimal performance
• instability, conflicts

• global performance
• required information bandwidth
• computational complexity
• lack of scalability

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Hierarchical control

• compromise between centralized distributed
• local controllers
• higher-level coordination
• safety global performance
• tractable scalable

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Current ATM limitations

• predefined corridors ? inefficient airspace
  utilization
• indirect routing, non-optimal altitude speed
• trajectories do not exploit favorable winds
• results increased flight time fuel consumption
• ATM complexity
• current ATM architecture is mainly centralized
  (USA)
• results heavy workload for air traffic
  controllers, unnecessary ground and air holding,
  not fault tolerant
• growing demand for air travel

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Future concepts TomlinSastry

• free flight
• pilots determine own routes, speed, altitude
• restrictions imposed in congested air space
  close to airport ? control tower
• aircraft coordinate to predict and resolve
  conflicts decentralized ATM
• benefits reduced flight times fuel burned,
  increased fault tolerance capacity
• hierarchical multi-agent control

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Hierarchical multi-agent control
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Control design techniques

• decision support systems heuristics, AI, fuzzy
  logic, scheduling, operations research
  optimization
• multi-agent controllers game theory, automated
  learning, adaptive control, model predictive
  control
• verification automata, hybrid systems

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References (free flight multi-agent control)

• C. Tomlin, G. Pappas, J. Lygeros, D. Godbole, S.
  Sastry, G. Meyer, Hybrid control in air traffic
  management systems, Proc. 13th IFAC World
  Congress (IFAC'96), San Francisco, pp. 127-132,
  June-July 1996.
• G. Pappas, C. Tomlin, J. Lygeros, D. Godbole, S.
  Sastry, A next generation architecture for air
  traffic management systems, Proc. 36th IEEE
  Conference on Decision and Control, San Diego,
  pp. 2405-2410, Dec. 1997.