Air Traffic Complexity: Towards an Intrinsic Metric

Abstract

This paper address the problem of measuring the air traffic complexity, given the observed positions and speeds of aircraft present in air space. Different studies have been conducted following various approaches like dynamic density and cognitive models. However, an intrinsic measure of the traffic complexity is still to be introduced in order to complete those previous works. Two classes of indicators are investigated. The first one uses geometrical properties in order to build a new complexity coordinate system in which sector complexity evolution through time is represented. The second one uses a representation of air traffic as a dynamical system, yielding, through the topological Kolmogorov entropy, an intrinsic measure of complexity.