Extracting Radar Vectoring Instructions Using Recorded ADS-B Trajectories

초록

Although air traffic volume around the world has been stagnant due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is expected to increase steadily in the future as the number of aircraft operations increases and next-generation air transportation such as drones and Urban Air Mobility are commercialized. Therefore, air traffic congestion problem is expected to become more complicated. Accordingly, research on efficient and systematic future air traffic management concepts are being actively conducted. This paper attempts to automatically extract the air traffic controller’s radar vectoring instruction using only the trajectory data obtained from the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) receivers. The proposed methodology was applied to the trajectory data of 2019 inside the National Airspace of the Republic of Korea. Analysis of the four major airports show in average around one heading or altitude change instructions. For most commonly used departure and arrival procedure at the Incheon International Airport, about five instructions per flight was identified. The proposed methodology enables a large scale statistical analysis of the status of radar vectoring and the controller workload at a busy terminal airspace using the historic trajectory data that is relatively easy to obtain. It is expected to be used for research related to enhancing safety and efficiency of the terminal area operation under continuously increasing traffic volume.