| Abstract | The Canadian Airspace Modelling project was a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project that was spearheaded by the National Research Council of Canada and Carleton University, in partnership with Transport Canada and NAV CANADA. The main goal of this project was to make use of historical aircraft track data provided by NAV CANADA to develop statistical models of the airspaces in Canada. The methodology employed to develop Canadian models was influenced by the renowned MIT LL (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory). However, it was acknowledged that their models, which were primarily based on US data, might not be directly applicable to Canadian airspaces. Ultimately, the objective of this project was to provide valuable insights and findings that would contribute to the development of Transport Canada's regulations regarding Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) in Canada. The project lasted for over two years, and was mostly funded by Transport Canada, as well as, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) Uninhabited Aircraft Systems Training, Innovation, and Leadership Initiative (UTILI) Program. The project comprised of three separate phases, with the completion of the project slated for the end of the 2023 fiscal year. National Research Council of Canada partnered with NAV CANADA, who supplied historical aircraft track data for model development. Phase 1 of the project focused on selecting the specific airspace suitable for analysis. Phase 2 of this project focused on developing algorithms to filter the aircraft track data and to develop the statistical model of that selected airspace. With the learnings of both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of this project, the research team focused on developing a streamlined methodology to standardize the Canadian airspace model generation process. Phase 3 of the Airspace Modeling project was dedicated to the large-scale processing and development of mixed statistical model of Canada, as well as, models for 12 selected regions that highlight the unique nature of Canadian airspace. This project report documents the final workflow for handling the track data received from NAV CANADA, as well as, the generation and analysis of the model outputs. Detailed descriptions of the tools and methodologies developed to create the statistical airspace models are presented in this report. Finally, concluding remarks on the project are given, as well as, future work to further the development of the tools and methodologies highlighted in this report. |
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