TABATS - Testbench for Agent-based Air Traffic Simulation
The air-traffic simulation Testbench for Agent-based Air Traffic Simulation (TABATS) was developed at the institute of logistics and aviation within the scope of the SESAR WP-E research project UTOPIA. The TABATS system is well suited for the study of complex air traffic scenarios. During the UTOPIA research project the TABATS was employed for the agent-based simulation of a common traffic scenario at the Frankfurt/Main airport (EDDF). To this end the TABATS interacted with an Arrival Manager developed by the company Barco-Orthogon and with an extended air-traffic simulation developed by Boing Research & Technology Europe (BRTE). The behavior of the aircraft is implemented in terms of an A320 Flight Management and Guidance System (FGMS) which includes lateral as well as vertical and temporal guidance concepts. Moreover the TABATS is able to handle typical instructions (e.g. Vectoring, Holding, RTA instructions) required by the air-traffic control. Alltogether the simulation environment includes 10661 airports, nearly half a million waypoints and navigation aids as well as the airport-specific arrival and departure routines. This allows the system to simulate the global air-traffic on a microscopic level. Furthermore, the integration of the BADA3 and/or BADA4 flight performance data allows an exact prediction of the four dimensional flight trajectory as well as an accurate control of realistic flight profiles for a total of 129 different types of aircraft (e.g. A320, B737, A340, C550, BAE146). A realistic mapping of environmental condiditions especially of the wind and of adverse weather conditions (thunder cells) paved the way towards a result oriented research aiming at the contribution of meaningful results in the fields of trajectory management, safety assessment and airport operations. The openly designed interface makes it possible to connect to additional simulation– and supportsystems, for example Arrival or Departure Managers (AMAN/DMAN). Moreover in the future it is envisioned to enhance the available controller workstations by means of software developed at the institute and to integrate them into the existing simulation environment. The controller workstations may, hence, be used in the context of research projects dealing with Human in the Loop (HIL) experiments wherein TABATS simulates the air-traffic as a background process. The comprehensive data acquisition during the simulation simplifies the exact validation of simulated air-traffic scenarios on the macroscopic level as well as the very detailed analysis of individual flights.
![TABATS](https://tu-dresden.de/bu/verkehr/ila/ifl/ressourcen/bilder/professur/einrichtungen/tabats/TABATS_1.png/@@images/8f891ba3-31dc-4b99-b687-b13613912903.png)
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![TABATS](https://tu-dresden.de/bu/verkehr/ila/ifl/ressourcen/bilder/professur/einrichtungen/tabats/TABATS_2.png/@@images/569a0185-2111-4f26-beaa-c0bff6f7eed3.png)
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![TABATS](https://tu-dresden.de/bu/verkehr/ila/ifl/ressourcen/bilder/professur/einrichtungen/tabats/TABATS_3.png/@@images/39f59093-97d3-4c85-b381-6d5714570610.png)
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- Simplified model of A320 Flight Management and Guidance Systems (FMGS) with enhanced functionality (Required-Time of Arrival (RTA), 4D-Trajectory prediction)
- Stochastic weather-modul for the simulation of wind and adverse weather conditions (thunder cells, heavy rain)
- Dynamic recalculation of flight routes for bypassing adverse weather regions on the basis of a regular grid structure
- Real- and quick-time simulation
- Existing TCP/IP interface for the connection with additional simulation moduls, for example AMAN (cf. SESAR WP-E research project UTOPIA)
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Usage of the simulation as a basis for controller workstations
- Separation of aircraft by means of a simplified air traffic controller model
- Integration of up-to-date arrival routines, for example Continuous Descent Operations (CDO)
- Integrated analysis and validation of generated trajectory data
- Extended validation in the TMA based on radar recordings combined with controller commands
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Tobias Gerbothe
- Thomas Kunze