Feasibility and Performance Benefits of Directional Force Fields for the Tactical Conflict Management of UAVs

As we move towards scenarios where the adoption of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) becomes massive, smart solutions are required to efficiently solve conflicts in the flight trajectories of aircraft so as to avoid potential collisions. Among the different possible approaches, adopting virtual force fields is a possible solution acknowledged for being simple, distributed, and yet effective. In this paper, we study the feasibility of a directional force field (D-FFP) approach, preliminary assessing its performance benefits compared to a standard force field protocol (FFP) using Matlab simulation. Results show that, in typical scenarios associated with aerial traffic corridors, the proposed approach can reduce the flight time overhead by 32% (on average) while maintaining the required flight safety distances between aircraft.