Graphical composite modeling and simulation for multi-aircraft collision avoidance

Modeling and simulation for multi-aircraft collision avoidance to understand the mechanistic behavior is an important activity. Building models using general programming language typically requires specialist knowledge, and this limits the spread of modeling and simulation approach among multi-aircraft collision avoidance scenario. Thus, a software environment is needed to support convenient development of models by assembling components, when analysis demands changes. In this work, the graphical composite modeling and simulation software (GMAS extended) for multi-aircraft collision avoidance is introduced, with the basic graphical components and a graphical assembly editor. We define the serial and parallel execution semantics of GMASE-based model and then introduce the high-level graphical modeling interface, the low-level runtime engine of GMAS, and the simulation-based decision tree, which transforms a complex decision-making process into a collection of simpler decisions of finding the no collision or optimal sequence from some initial state to the goal state. To validate its efficiency and practicability, a three-aircraft collision avoidance model with TCAS operations is built on GMAS, which shows that using GMAS increases reusability and hiding complexity in graphical programming by splitting complex behavior into data flow and function components. The experimental result proves that GMAS not only provides a better representation for multi-aircraft collision avoidance, but also a useful approach for analyzing the potential collision occurrences.