A Formation Control Approach for Autonomous Coordinated Separation Management in AAM Operations

Integrating Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) into existing commercial aviation operations is the next big challenge for air traffic management. Efficient use of available airspace to manage different aircraft types, route profiles, and shorter planning times requires smart ad-hoc systems on-board the aircraft that can supplement centralized route planning and dispatch. A fully distributed, formation control approach for separation management is proposed that minimizes disruption by ensuring that each aircraft's maneuvers are coordinated. Such a system allows an additional buffer of safety in addition to the collision detection and avoidance technologies on-board an aircraft. A Lyapunov control potential function is defined to analytically develop the coordinated maneuver to ensure separation between two aircraft. A consensus model extends the maneuver vectors to multiple aircraft with losses in separation. The implicit coordination model guaranties that maneuvers do not cause a ripple effect in a congested airspace. The robustness of the approach is established through simulation and analysis.