Air Traffic Control Project – A Real-Time System Implementation
In our COEN 320 course, we developed a simplified Air Traffic Monitoring and Control (ATC) system, focusing on the en-route airspace. This project was implemented in C/C++ and ran on the QNX real-time operating system, ensuring accurate timing constraints and efficient task scheduling.
Project Overview
Our ATC system simulates an en-route control center, responsible for tracking aircraft as they traverse a designated 3D airspace. The system continuously monitors aircraft positions, velocities, and separation distances, issuing alerts for potential collisions.
Implemented Modules
- Radar System: Detects and tracks aircraft, relaying their positions to the computer system.
- Computer System: Processes aircraft data, checks for safety violations, and issues alerts if a collision is predicted within 3 minutes.
- Data Display: Updates the airspace visualization every 5 seconds, ensuring controllers have real-time situational awareness.
- Operator Console: Allows manual intervention, enabling air traffic controllers to adjust aircraft altitude, speed, or trajectory.
- Communication System: Transmits control commands from operators to the aircraft.
Technical Highlights
- Aircraft are modeled as individual threads, periodically updating their position every second.
- Real-time constraints are maintained using QNX message passing, ensuring efficient inter-process communication.
- Collision detection is implemented using mathematical trajectory analysis, predicting conflicts based on aircraft movement.
- Logging system records airspace history every 30 seconds, allowing post-analysis of aircraft movement.