Air Traffic Simulation

Sam Eberspacher

What is it?

Simulation of air traffic over the United States Uses a sample of 51 major airports to simulate Uses latitude and longitude for more accurate

travel times Airports act as any airport would, regulating the

landing and take-off of airplanes Goal is to chart delays and examine how they

propagate thought the system

Progress

Geocoder written to obtain latitudes and longitudes from an address

Simulator displays the airports using the latitudes and longitudes

Airports have a queue for take-off and landing Airplanes have destinations and a projected

schedule Used when delay calculations are implemented

Screenshot

Geocoding

Process by which an address is converted to longitude and latitude

I use Google Maps geocoder Send an HTTP request to Google including the

address, output format and Google Maps key http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q

=address&output=csv&key=GMAP_KEY Address formatting is important

Address Formatting

I tried several types of address formatting because I do not have street addresses

Airport code works well (BWI, AUS, PHX, etc) Code with “airport” attached also works well In order to maximize the number of valid

airports the geocoding program tries one form, then the other in the event of a failed request

Geocoder Screenshot

Validation was needed to verify that the latitude and longitude is in the United States

Whats Next?

Implement collision detection and avoidance Animate the traffic and implement path tracing Implement delay calculations and map them to

a color Weight traffic in and out of airports with time to

more realistically model patterns