Reliably Creating Collision Avoidance Advisories in Piloted Simulations

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel method to reliably generate collision avoidance advisories, in piloted simulations, by the widely used traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS). The TCAS advisory issued to a pilot is highly sensitive to the trajectory of an intruder aircraft relative to the ownship flown by the pilot. In realistic piloted simulations, a prescripted intruder trajectory will not reliably result in the relative dynamics that lead to a desired TCAS advisory. Further, the complexity of the TCAS logic requires a novel method for mapping trajectories to the range of possible advisories. We propose to use a rapidly exploring random tree algorithm in large-scale fast-time simulations to establish the mapping between the space of relative trajectories and TCAS advisories. These trajectories are then created in piloted simulations through guidance algorithms. Results demonstrate the ease of use and robustness of this method, and its potential for pilot training and for research and development.