Air Traffic Management aims at ensuring safety during aircraft operations, particularly within Terminal Manoeuvring Areas where traffic density is high. The challenge lies in balancing safety and efficiency by closely managing the likelihood of mid-air collisions regarding the airport movements. Traditional models like the Reich and Anderson-Hsu models have been influential, but they fall short in representing the complex reality of Terminal Manoeuvring Areas. Data-driven approaches are emerging, with Monte Carlo simulations offering a more flexible methodology for collision risk estimation. This paper introduces a framework for assessing Mid-Air Collision likelihood resulting from Terminal Manoeuvring Area procedures by combining the field of Deep Generative Modelling using a Variational Autoencoder with the domain of rare event statistics through Subset Simulation. By incorporating disentanglement into the Variational Autoencoders model, we create a latent space that aligns dimensions with distinctive trajectory traits. Then, Subset Simulation is employed to gauge Mid-Air Collision probability, utilizing latent representations as input. Finally, sensitivity analysis reveals pivotal factors influencing collision risk, correlated with trajectory attributes via disentanglement. The methodology is applied to traffic around Zurich Airport: it evaluates the risk arising from go-around and take-off procedures using Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast data.

Abstract Free space optical communications are becoming a mature technology to cope with the needs of high data rate payloads for future low‐earth orbiting observation satellites. However, they are strongly impacted by clouds. In this paper, we aim to find a network of optical ground stations maximizing the percentage of data acquired by a low‐earth orbiting satellite that can be transferred to the Earth, taking into consideration cloud information. This problem can be separated in two parts and solved hierarchically: the selection of a network of optical ground stations and the assignment of downloads to visibility windows of the stations. We present theoretical and practical results regarding the complexity of the latter subproblem and propose a dynamic programming algorithm to solve it. We combine this algorithm with two methods for the enumeration of the stations, and compare them with a mixed integer linear program (MILP). Results show that even if the MILP can solve scenarios over small horizons, the hierarchical approaches outperform it in term of computation time while still achieving optimality for larger instances.

For space industries, free-space optical communications are becoming a mature technology, but the impact of their use to download observations from spatial imagery systems has still to be evaluated. Unlike current radio-frequency technology, freespace optical communications are strongly impacted by weather conditions, and most notably by clouds. In order to cope with the later, it is necessary to achieve ground station diversity, i.e. having a network of optical ground stations able to receive data from satellites. In this paper, we aim to find a subset of a given number of ground stations maximizing the amount of data that can be downloaded from a low-earth orbiting satellite to the Earth during its missions. We present a Mixed Integer Linear Program model and a hierarchical method based on an exhaustive enumeration of the sets of stations and on a dynamic programming algorithm to solve it. The efficiency of this method is evaluated on several instances based on real ground station networks and on cloud cover throughout the last twenty years.

Given a partially observable dynamic system and a diagnoser observing its evolution over time, diagnosability analysis formally verifies (at design time) if the diagnosis system will be able to infer (at runtime) the required information on the hidden part of the dynamic state. Diagnosability directly depends on the availability of observations, and can be guaranteed by different sets of sensors, possibly associated with different costs. In this paper, we tackle the problem of synthesizing observability requirements, i.e. automatically discovering a set of observations that is sufficient to guarantee diagnosability. We propose a novel approach with the following characterizing features. First, it fully covers a comprehensive formal framework for diagnosability analysis, and enables ranking configurations of observables in terms of cost, minimality, and diagnosability delay. Second, we propose two complementary algorithms for the synthesis of observables. Third, we describe an efficient implementation that takes full advantage of mature symbolic model checking techniques. The proposed approach is thoroughly evaluated over a comprehensive suite of benchmarks taken from the aerospace domain.

In this paper we propose a hybrid system modeling framework aimed at analyzing diagnosability. In this framework, the hybrid system is seen as the composition of an underlying discrete event and an underlying continuous systems. Diagnosability of these two underlying systems are fully analyzed and new results are provided for the underlying continuous system (called the multimode system). Based on these results, a hybrid language that contains ‘natural’ discrete events and discrete events capturing the continuous dynamics, is defined. On the basis of this language the diagnosability definition of hybrid systems is provided. With respect to this definition, we prove that the diagnosability of the underlying continuous or the discrete event system is only a sufficient condition. Diagnosability of hybrid systems must be decided by coupling both discrete event and continuous informations. Finally, the necessary and sufficient condition of hybrid diagnosability is given.

It is commonly accepted that the requirements for maintenance and diagnosis should be considered at the earliest stages of design. For this reason, methods for analyzing the diagnosability of a system and determining which sensors are needed to achieve the desired degree of diagnosability are highly valued. This paper clarifies the different diagnosability properties of a system and proposes a model-based method for: 1) assessing the level of discriminability of a system, i.e., given a set of sensors, the number of faults that can be discriminated, and its degree of diagnosability, i.e., the discriminability level related to the total number of anticipated faults; and 2) characterizing and determining the minimal additional sensors that guarantee a specified degree of diagnosability. The method takes advantage of the concept of component-supported analytical redundancy relation, which considers recent results crossing over the fault detection and isolation and diagnosis communities. It uses a model of the system to analyze in an exhaustive manner the analytical redundancies associated with the availability of sensors and performs from that a full diagnosability assessment. The method is applied to an industrial smart actuator that was used as a benchmark in the Development and Application of Methods for Actuator Diagnosis in Industrial Control Systems European project.