Single Runway Aircraft Landing Scheduling Using Simulated Annealing and Exact Timing Method

Abstract

One of the most challenging optimization problems in air traffic control is minimizing the deviation of aircraft arrival times from its target landing time. This can be achieved by efficiently allocating landing times and runways to the arriving aircraft. This problem is called the Aircraft Landing Problem (ALP). To address the ALP, this paper proposes a new approach which combines the Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm with an exact timing method. The problem is solved in two stages: first, the optimal sequence is generated using the SA; in the second stage, the optimal landing time is determined using the exact timing method. The proposed approach is tested with 500 aircraft and a single runway using a well-known benchmark dataset from the scientific literature. The obtained results demonstrated the ability of the proposed approach to generate promising and competitive results.