Preliminary assessment of operational benefits for a graph-based Dynamic Airspace Configuration algorithm

Previously, a graph-based algorithm for essence of Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) is developed, in alliance with the essential ideas of the DAC concepts: innovative air space structure and time-varying adaptation to those structures. This paper presents preliminary assessment of operational benefits for the DAC algorithm using ETMS data of the Cleveland center (ZOB) for a good weather day. The airspace of ZOB is vertically divided into two fields: high sectors (24000ft and above) and low sectors (10000ft to 23900ft). Moreover, sector boundaries are generated algorithmically in intervals of 60 minutes and 30 minutes for the purpose of inherent exploration of the air traffic structure. Mainly, three metrics are considered: number of sectors, aircraft counts in a sector, and dwell time. Preliminary results indicate benefit for staffing requirement and performance robustness to time-varying data of our algorithm. Inversely, through the assessment results our algorithm exhibits intensive support for DAC concepts.