Real-time optimal delay minimization algorithms for aircraft on a same runway and dual runways

TL;DR

This paper introduces real-time algorithms for aircraft scheduling on single and dual runways that significantly outperform traditional mixed-integer optimization methods in speed, enabling near-instantaneous delay minimization for large aircraft groups.

Contribution

The paper presents novel real-time algorithms for aircraft scheduling that effectively handle coupling delays and outperform existing optimization approaches in speed and efficiency.

Findings

Optimal solutions for 100 aircraft on dual runways within 10 seconds

Traditional methods like CPLEX take over an hour for similar problems

Proposed algorithms exploit aircraft classification and parallel computing

Abstract

In this paper, scheduling problems of aircraft minimizing the total delays on a same runway and on dual runways are studied. In contrast to the algorithms based on mixed-integer optimization models in existing works, where the optimality and the real-time performance are usually unable to be dealt with at the same time, our work focuses on the interaction mechanism between aircraft coupling with delays and two real-time optimal algorithms are proposed for the four scheduling problems by fully exploiting the combinations of different classes of aircraft based on parallel computing technology. When $100$ aircraft on dual runways is considered, by using the algorithm in this paper, the optimal solution can be obtained within less than $10$ seconds, while by using the CPLEX software to solve the mix-integer optimization model, the optimal solution cannot be obtained within $1$ hour.