Systematic vs. Non-Systematic Search for 3D Aircraft Conflict Resolution

A conflict is an event in which two or more aircraft experience a loss of minimum separation. In this paper, we formulate the problem of solving conflicts arising among several aircraft moving in a shared airspace as a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP). The constraint satisfaction problem being NP-complete, the algorithms developed to solve it have been of two types: non-systematic and systematic search methods. In this paper, we have considered a breakout algorithm as an example of non-systematic search methods and a backtracking procedure that maintains Arc Consistency (MAC) as an example of systematic search methods. The performance of these algorithms was compared experimentally and the Breakout algorithm is shown to be clearly superior.