Air Traffic Control: The Next Step!

Team: 83

School: Manzano High

Area of Science: Computer Science/Physics

Proposal: Although there are many people who work in air traffic control, many mistakes are made as they try to manage air traffic. Our goal is to reduce the amount of human error by creating a program that efficiently directs airplanes at a medium sized airport. With this program, the risk of human error will decrease for managing air traffic on and off runways and in result, increase the safety of air travel and maximize the capability of an airport. The program will be based on the layout of a medium sized airport, but can easily be adaptable to other airports.
Our course of action for creating the program is to first obtain data. We will study the physics of airplanes; learn about airport layouts and the way they function. Our next step is to write basic engine code that uses the calculations of airplane physics in order to form an algorithm. Then, we will use the program to create a model of its efficiency. The final step is to formulate codes for handling events like emergency landings, fires, repairs on runways, etc. and to incorporate it into our program.
For the next 6 weeks, our immediate plan of action is to formulate what exact data is needed for the program, what is going to be the basics of the program, and focus on the main objectives on the program. Then, we will utilize 3 weeks of time to write the engine code and test the program's applicability.
This program will be a java-based extension of a C++-based airport traffic management project done for the Challenge by Manzano Team 127 in 2009-2010.

Team Members:

  Ian Wesselkamper
  Tommy Soudachanh
  Khiem Tang

Sponsoring Teacher: Stephen Schum

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