The students of Georgia Tech faculty members Magnus Egerstedt and Patricio Vela and their coauthors tied for first place for the Best Student Paper Award at the 29th Digital Avionics Systems Conference, which was held October 3-7 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Dr. Vela, who is an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and his Ph.D. student Gbolabo Ogunmakin, and mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Adam Vela were recognized for their paper entitled "Topologically Based Decision Support Tools for Aircraft Routing." In this paper, they introduce a decision support tool for air traffic controllers during inclement weather. The tool is based on reachability computations and provides insight into optimal routing trajectories for airplanes. Visual feedback is provided to allow the controller to rapidly assess the airspace and recommend routes through inclement weather.

The paper, "Air Traffic Maximization for the Terminal Phase of Flight under FAA’s NEXTGEN Framework," was written by ECE graduate students Philip Twu and Rahul Chipalkatty, ECE postdoctoral fellow Amir Rahmani, Twu's and Chipalkatty's Ph.D. advisor Magnus Egerstedt, and Ryan Young from Rockwell Collins. This work deals with the problem of increasing the throughput in the civilian airspace by letting aircrafts negotiate spacing and merging among themselves. The paper develops new, decentralized optimization tools for ensuring safety as well as throughput maximization, and it is envisioned to fit as a part of FAA's future NEXTGEN air traffic management framework.