An adaptive time series framework for aircraft 4D trajectory conformance monitoring

The general problem of conformance monitoring with respect to preassigned 4-dimensional (4D) trajectories equipped with corresponding 4D margins (4D contracts) is considered within an adaptive statistical time series framework. The specific issues tackled within this context are: (a) Present conformance monitoring and quality of conformance evaluation via statistical tools, which also leads to abnormal event detection; (b) future conformance monitoring, in which the conformance is predicted ahead of time, allowing for potentially corrective or other actions. The performance of the developed methods is assessed via simulations. In present conformance monitoring, an alarm is shown to be issued instantaneously, following the emergence of an abnormal event. In future conformance monitoring, the comparison with a scheme based on nominal probabilistic trajectory prediction demonstrates the benefits of the adaptive statistical time series framework.