Makespan minimization in aircraft landing problem under congested traffic situation using modified artificial bee colony algorithm

Abstract

Due to the increase in air transportation demand, runway capacity is reaching a bottleneck at the international airports, especially during peak hours. Managing on aircraft sequencing or sequencing problems in airport perspective have become a crucial operation nowadays in order to maintain safety landing and utilize the runway facility to handle the schedules for all incoming aircraft under congestion. The traditional approach allows aircraft to remain an economic speed during approaching to the airport. However, such approach may not be applicable in congested air traffic situation. Therefore, the makespan minimization is more practical for the rescheduling efforts afterwards. This article presents a modified artificial bee colony algorithm to obtain nearly optimal solution to support the air tower controller in order to obtain last-minute decisions of landing sequence. The modified artificial bee colony algorithm for aircraft landing problem provides a promising optimal search within 6.1 seconds to handle last-minute disruption.