A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Scheme for Multi-Aircraft Conflict Resolution

Multi-Aircraft Conflict Resolution (MACR) is a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) problem, which involves multiple stakeholders (airline, air traffic controller, and aircraft) with competing and incommensurable objectives. This paper proposes a two-step MCDM scheme to the solution of MACR. In the first step, a second order cone program is adopted to generate a set of candidate resolution strategies with different minimum separations between trajectories. Each candidate strategy is then evaluated via three criteria modeling the interests of the stakeholders. In the second step, the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach is used to determine the best strategy that realizes an adequate tradeoff among the competing interests while coping with their incommensurability. Some numerical results are presented to show the efficacy of the proposed scheme. Interestingly, the minimum separations associated with the best resolution strategies according to either the interest of the airline or that of the aircraft both differ from the one adopted in the current air traffic control operation.