Route planning and optimization for free route airspace

The aircraft operates in many different airspaces in international flights. The air traffic services over those airspaces can be changed because of many different reasons. The route structure is one of those reasons. The route structure of airspaces can be changed whether it has fixed route or free route structure. Conventionally the waypoints and air route network are defined and published by air navigation service provider in fixed route airspaces. The user of the fixed route airspace can plan their flight over these published waypoints and air routes. As opposed to fixed route airspace, only the entrance and exit points declaration is enough for free route airspaces. The users can freely plan their route in free route airspaces between entry and exit points. The free route airspaces give chances to their users to create much more flexible routes. Nevertheless, all the airspaces that will be used among the flight must be free route in order to effectively take advantages of free route concept. If the airspaces among the flight have a mixed structure as combined with fixed route airspaces and free route airspaces the flexibility of free route airspaces can not be exactly used because of fixed route airspaces. In this situation the route planning in free route airspaces is restricted due to the fixed route airspaces. Because of this reason the route planning must be carried out effectively with taking fixed route structure. In the scope of this thesis, the optimization methods are developed for the search of best route planning in mixed airspaces which have fixed route and free route airspaces. The optimization search for the route planning at mixed airspaces aims to minimize the total cost which compose of fuel cost, ground delay cost and air delay cost. Determination of the conflict-free routes and delay amounts is achieved as a result of optimization for route planning which is considering of fixed routes, air route capacity and separation minimum at mixed airspaces. The simulated annealing method is used for the complex routing problem in addition to the mathematical model. The developed optimization methods can be characterized as a decision support mechanism that can be used in strategic and pre-tactical stages in air traffic flow and capacity management. Keywords: Free route airspace, Fixed route airspace, Route planning, Simulated annealing