DESCRIPTION
This is a customizable animation, programed in MATLAB, to help visualize the complexities of the landing procedure for two planes landing on close spaced parallel runways. When two planes are landing they are required to maintain a certain distance from each other at all times to avoid turbulence from wake vortices. As they approach the runway they slow down, so planes further out are traveling faster than ones in front and they get closer together over time. In order to maintain this minimum distance between planes, they have to account for this phenomenon and by maintaining a larger distance than required when far from landing. This program calculates that distance based on many variables and shows how the planes approach. Even if all planes had to maintain the same distance throughout the landing, the distance they have to maintain far from the runway is dictated by many other factors. These factors include how fast the planes are traveling far from the runway and at the runway, how large the planes are, how far the runways are apart, how far the runways are staggered, when the planes start to descend, at what angle they descend, and at what rate they slow down. All of these calculations are included in a complex algorithm built into this 10,000-line code.
Plane Landing Simulation Program
PROCESS
While working at the Volpe Center I was assigned this vague project of animating this complex procedure. With almost no experience coding it was a very difficult task. I took it step by step, asked for help when I could find it, and mostly learned from trial and error. I started by animating a simple triangle and slowly added complexity in over time. I primarily worked on this code for 3 months and I was amazed with how well it turned out. It is probably the largest project I have worked on and I did it with almost no experience or help.
LESSONS LEARNED
I greatly improved my MATLAB skills and I have a much better understand of coding in general. More importantly, I learned how to tackle and highly challenging and vague task, with little support or experience.
