A computationally efficient method for automatically generating lateral resolutions for air traffic control problems for a given aircraft allows for prediction and evaluation of required separation between aircraft, between aircraft and airspace, and problems with assigned metering time. Upon a possible problem being predicted, lateral resolutions are created which provide plans to re-route the original flight trajectory of the aircraft in order to avoid a possible problem by examining the space surrounding the aircraft, iteratively adding data on each conflict encountered into a conflict database, calculating and probing maneuver trajectories for all conflicts in the conflict database, and selecting the most appropriate of the created maneuver trajectories.
Patent Number: 6,604,044
Date Issued: August 05 2003