A Simple Model of a Air Traffic Control System

Basic infrastructure for modeling ATC

Description

The demo models a simplified air traffic control system. The goal was to create a design pattern in Simulink that has the following 4 views into this complex system:

1. Network flow view
2. System of systems view
3. Database view
4. 3D geometry view

All the views are incorporated together within the Simulink environment to simulate the various agents.
Here are some brief notes on the demo:
1. Every channel in the network is modeled as a custom queue in SimEvents whose elements can be reordered based on an attribute that is set by a geometric quantity computed in Simulink. This custom queue can also be inspected to retrieve internal values. This custom queue can be used as a building block for modeling even more complex network topologies.
2. A token slot algorithm has been created to keep track of the number of aircraft requesting takeoff. After a takeoff has occurred successfully, the token is released back into the pool.
3. The aircraft dynamics are modeled as a simple time-based function. By using the FOR EACH subsystem, the dynamics of the all the aircraft can be computed in a loop for each time step. These values are then fed into the global database which is accessible to all the other views.
4. A simplified collision control demo is implemented. The goal is to make sure that aircraft on the taxiway do not bump into each other. Variability in pilot behavior is also introduced to study the efficacy of the controller. The control logic is modeled in Stateflow wherever appropriate.
5. The dynamic creation and deletion of the entity aircraft in 3D animation is achieved via the use of the PROTO node. By defining the aircraft in a master file, instances of it can be invoked at simulation time.
6. Aerospace Blockset provides the coordinate transformations needed in this model.
7. In this example, the capacity of the airport has been set to 10. The capacity of the taxiway is 4. Only 1 aircraft can be on the runway at any one time. You can adjust these parameters to study throughput, runway utilization, and input load on the system. This would be done within the network view that uses SimEvents.
8. Higher fidelity plant models can be constructed with Aerospace Blockset, Simscape, SimMechanics, and SimDriveline and incorporated into the simulation as the FOR EACH subsystem supports continuous time dynamics in R2011b.

• Required Products: Aerospace Blockset; Aerospace Toolbox; SimEvents; Simulink; Stateflow; Simulink 3D Animation
• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.13 (2011b)

[Roni Peer]

Great demo to show the interaction between SimEvents and Simulink. And the Visualization is really helpful. By a simple manipulation, you can show how much fuel is wasted by the planes waiting for their liftoff, and other types of statistics.