Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2016
In this manuscript, a new concept of 2D-semi-optimal-circular-3-arced-path manoeuvres with constant speed for multiple aircraft cooperative conflict resolution is presented. This type of manoeuvres is based on appropriate commands to heading, speed and manoeuvreing time. According to aircraft turning dynamics, each aircraft manoeuvre is composed of three tangent circular arcs. The optimality of manoeuvres is based on the minimisation of weighted sum of kinetic energy for aircraft two-legged manoeuvres. In comparison, aircraft with lower weight factors bear more responsibility to resolve the conflicts. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for real time conflict resolution is guaranteed, where the number of encountering aircraft is less than five. Otherwise, the current method could also be jointed to one of the fast resolution methods, like probabilistic resolution algorithm or genetic algorithm – as a tool to choose the convex domain – to become more computationally effective. Considerable number of case studies has been done to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, while some are presented in the paper.