Patent ID: 8831864

Claim:
A method for operating a traffic control system to detect and prevent conflicts in vehicle traffic, including at least two vehicles from the groups including aircraft and ground vehicles, using resources within a traffic control space, comprising: obtaining with the traffic control system time-based trajectory data for the vehicles within the traffic control space; modeling with the traffic control system constraints that must be satisfied by the vehicles and resources within the traffic control space, the constraints including trajectory time constraints for the vehicles related to the predicted time that each vehicle uses a resource, and capacity constraints for resources within the traffic control space related to the number of vehicles that can use the resource at a given time, wherein the constraints are indicative of potential conflicts among the vehicles and between the vehicles and resources, and wherein the constraints have relationships indicative of how conflicts propagate between vehicles and resources within the traffic control space; constructing with the traffic control system one or more conflict networks modeling the constraints in which each node in the network is represented by a constraint and links between nodes represent relationships between constraints; applying with the traffic control system conflict and error prevention and detection (CEPD) logic to the one or more conflict networks to detect conflicts that have occurred and to identify conflicts before they occur, based on whether the constraints in the conflict network are satisfied or unsatisfied; and providing with the traffic control system a sensible output indicative of the detection or identification of a conflict among the vehicles and resources within the traffic control space.