Agent-Based Approach to Free-Flight Planning, Control, and Simulation

Intelligent-agents technology provides techniques and algorithms for distributed coordination and distributed decision making. The authors developed AgentFly, a multiagent prototype for air traffic control of free-flight-based operations of multiple aerial assets, based on intelligent agents. AgentFly provides mechanisms for distributed planning, negotiation-based collision avoidance, and multiagent flight simulation. The US Air Force supports this project, but the Federal Aviation Administration is also studying AgentFly for planning mixed traffic of manned and unmanned air traffic.