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At least 235 records · Page 13

A Cognitive Game Theoretic Analysis of Conflict Alerts in Air Traffic Control

The current research was motivated by the recommendation made by a joint Government/Industry committee to introduce a new traffic control system, referred to as the Free Flight. This system is designed to use recent new technology to facilitate efficient and safe air transportation. We addressed one of the major difficulties that arise in the design of this and similar multi-agent systems: the adaptive (and slippery) nature of human agents. To facilitate a safe and efficient design of this multi-agent system, designers have to rely on assessments of the expected behavior of the different agents under various scenarios. Whereas the behavior of the computerized agents is predictable, the behavior of the human agents (including air traffic controllers and pilots) is not. Experimental and empirical observations suggest that human agents are likely to adjust their behavior to the design of the system. To see the difficulty that the adaptive nature of human agents creates assume that a good approximation of the way operators currently behave is available. Given this information an optimal design can be performed. The problem arises as the human operator will learn to adjust their behavior to the new system. Following this adjustment process the assumptions made by the designer concerning the operators behavior will no longer be accurate and the system might reach a suboptimal state. In extreme situations these potential suboptimal states might involve unnecessary risk. That is, the fact that operators learn in an adaptive fashion does not imply that the system will become safer as they gain experience. At least in the context of Safety dilemmas, experience can lead to a pareto deficient risk taking behavior.

Erev, Ido↗

Distributed and Centralized Conflict Management Under Traffic Flow Management Constraints

Current air transportation in the United States relies on a system born half a century ago. While demand for air travel has kept increasing over the years, technologies at the heart of the National Airspace System (NAS) have not been able to follow an adequate evolution. For instance, computers used to centralize flight data in airspace sectors run a software developed in 1972. Safety, as well as certification and portability issues arise as major obstacles for the improvement of the system. The NAS is a structure that has never been designed, but has rather evolved over time. This has many drawbacks, mainly due to a lack of integration and engineering leading to many inefficiencies and losses of performance. To improve the operations, understanding of this complex needs to be built up to a certain level. This work presents research done on Air Traffic Management (ATM) at the level of the en-route sector.

Feron, Eric↗

Trajectory Specification for Terminal Air Traffic: Pairwise Conflict Detection and Resolution

Trajectory specification is the explicit bounding and control of aircraft trajectories such that the position at each point in time is constrained to a precisely defined volume of space. The bounding space is defined by cross-track, along-track, and vertical tolerances relative to a reference trajectory that specifies position as a function of time. The tolerances are dynamic and will be based on the aircraft navigation capabilities and the current traffic situation. A standard language will be developed to represent these specifications and to communicate them by datalink. Assuming conformance, trajectory specification can guarantee safe separation for an arbitrary period of time even in the event of an air traffic control (ATC) system or datalink failure, hence it can help to achieve the high level of safety and reliability needed for ATC automation. As a more proactive form of ATC, it can also maximize airspace capacity and reduce the reliance on tactical backup systems during normal operation. It applies to both enroute airspace and the terminal area around airports, but this paper focuses on the terminal area and presents algorithms and software for spacing arrivals and deconflicting both arrivals and departures.

air traffic control↗

How fire patterns reveal uneven stabilization at the end of conflict: examining Syria's unusual fire year in 2019

In 2019, Syria experienced its largest outbreak of fires since 2003, when fire occurrence began to be monitored via the MODIS satellite instruments. Here, we combine remotely sensed data on fire, local climatic conditions, and vegetation with spatial data on violence, territorial control, and return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to explore the underlying causes of Syria's fires at the sub-district, or ADM-3, level. We find evidence for a nuanced story: precipitation and stabilization in Kurdish-controlled territory fueled a bountiful wheat-growing year in 2019. This agricultural resurgence coincided with high fire activity, possibly revealing that people were attempting to jump-start agricultural livelihoods that were lost during the civil war. Restoration of labor forces from IDP returns was not a significant factor in this agricultural recovery. Meanwhile, most sub-districts outside Kurdish-controlled territory were free of fires, which explains the absence of a relationship between vegetation and fire. Thus, Syrian fire patterns in 2019 may be a signal of uneven stabilization, rather than destabilization.

Fire patterns↗

Idaho & Oregon Agriculture: Monitoring Vegetation Impacts of Livestock Management Practices Used to Reduce Predator Conflicts on Idaho and Oregon Grazing Allotments

The practice of night penning, which involves corralling livestock into a fenced, secure area overnight, aims to safeguard animals from predators. Although this method has proven successful in minimizing interactions between livestock and wildlife, the extent of its impact on vegetation communities is still being explored. This project examines the feasibility of using Net Primary Productivity (NPP) values from the Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP) to quantify the impacts of night penning on rangeland vegetation communities. RAP provides spatially distributed values of vegetation composition, cover, and productivity, and is derived from imagery from Landsat 5, Landsat 7 & Landsat 8 at a 30m resolution for rangelands across the United States. Our DEVELOP team partnered with Alderspring Ranch, Krebs Livestock, and the U.S Department of Agriculture Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to analyze the impacts of night penning on vegetation communities. We identified control sites that captured the topographic characteristics of night pen sites used by our partners. We then quantified and compared changes in annual NPP between night pen and control sites. Our analysis of RAP NPP data, using a control-treatment design did not find impacts of night penning on vegetation. However, this was a preliminary analysis, and does not conclusively quantify the impacts of night penning on rangeland vegetation. Our analysis indicated that RAP may be a feasible tool to study livestock management impacts on rangeland vegetation; however, future studies could further validate these findings through ground observations.

Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP)↗