Guest lecture: Computational Geometry Methods to Improve Efficiency and Safety in Air Traffic Management
by Professor Joseph Mitchell from Stony Brook University, New York
on Monday 17th March at 12 in room B222.
Professor Mitchell's research interests are computational geometry, algorithms and data structures, optimization, operations research, graphics and visualization, computer-aided (geometric) design and manufacturing.
Abstract: A severe storm is moving through the central plains. How should air traffic be routed around the hazardous weather cells in order to minimize impact on the air transportation system? Challenging geometric optimization problems arise in trying to maximize the effective safe utilization of the National Airspace System in the presence of many and varied constraints, such as hazardous weather. The challenge is substantially compounded when the constraints vary in time and are not known with certainty, as is the case with the weather. In this talk we discuss algorithmic methods from the field of computational geometry that can be used in modeling and solving air traffic management problems, such as capacity estimation, flow routing, and airspace configuration in the face of dynamic and uncertain constraints and demands. We highlight several open problems.