Handling Weather Uncertainty in Air Traffic Prediction through an Inverse Approach

Abstract

Adverse weather conditions, particularly convective phenomena, pose significant challenges to Air Traffic Management, often requiring real-time rerouting decisions that impact efficiency and safety. This study introduces a 3-D Gaussian Mixture Model to predict long lead-time flight trajectory changes, incorporating comprehensive weather and traffic data. Utilizing high-resolution meteorological datasets, including convective weather maps and wind data, alongside traffic records, the model demonstrates robust performance in forecasting reroutes up to 60 minutes. The novel 3-D Gaussian Mixture Model framework employs a probabilistic approach to capture uncertainty while providing accurate forecasts of altitude, latitude, and longitude. Extensive evaluation revealed a Mean Absolute Percentage Error below 0.02 across varying lead times, highlighting the model's accuracy and scalability. By integrating explainability techniques such as the Vanilla Gradient algorithm, the study provides insights into feature contributions, showing that they contribute to improving Air Traffic Management strategies to mitigate weather-induced disruptions.