Re: The actual quote from the Post AAS article

[eachus@mitre-bedford.arpa (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <1993Mar16.145422.14034@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> willett@cbnewsl.cb.att.c
om (david.c.willett) writes:

  > It seems to me that the complexity of an ATC system would increase
  > similarly to the N-body problem from physics...
     
  There are two different problems here, the complexity of the
software, and the computational difficulties of a particular number of
planes in the same airspace.  Mike was talking about the first, David
about the second.  Both are involved here.

  The highest aircraft densities in the world occur over Southern
California and the Boston-Washington corridor.  Most of this traffic
is general aviation not commerical, but the ATC system still has to
deal with it.  However a much nastier problem is that with the long
traffic corridors in the US and in some cases, several parallel
corridors, all of this traffic can be concentrated in just a small
slice of the sky.  This is a particular problem with, for example the
approaches to Hartsfield in Atlanta.

   The complexity of the software to deal with these things does not
grow at the same rate as the mathematical complexity of the
computation, but you do need to use much more sophisticated algorithms
to keep the mathematical complexity under control.  Also the reality
of the situation is that only a few countries have or need more than
one enroute control center, and the distribution requirements do make
the problem much harder.

    Sorry to spend so much time contributing data not heat to the
discussion... :-)

--

					Robert I. Eachus

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