Abstract
Aircrafts require a large amount of fuel in order to generate enough power to perform a flight. That consumption causes the emission of polluting particles such as carbon dioxide, which is implicated in global warming. This paper proposes an algorithm which can provide the 3D reference trajectory that minimizes the flight costs and the fuel consumption. The proposed algorithm was conceived using the Floyd–Warshall methodology as a reference. Weather was taken into account by using forecasts provided by Weather Canada. The search space was modeled as a directional weighted graph. Fuel burn was computed using the Base of Aircraft DAta (BADA) model developed by Eurocontrol. The trajectories delivered by the developed algorithm were compared to long-haul flight plans computed by a European airliner and to as-flown trajectories obtained from Flightradar24®. The results reveal that up to 2000 kg of fuel can be reduced per flight, and flight time can be also reduced by up to 11 min.
Highlights
Air transportation has become an important part of the world’s economic system, as it is one of the most common means of traveling long distances and a safe way to transport valuable and perishable cargo
The information obtained from the weather forecast allows the computation of different is known for the exact pressure altitude at the current time for the 4 points surrounding the parameters, such as the local speed of sound, the Ground speed, and the International Standard aircraft; and Atmosphere (ISA) temperature deviation (ISAdev)
Using a graph search algorithm brings the problem of tracking the aircraft weight when two different edges connect to a given waypoint which subsequently connects to another set of waypoints
Summary
Air transportation has become an important part of the world’s economic system, as it is one of the most common means of traveling long distances and a safe way to transport valuable and perishable cargo. Another study indicated that domestic flights within Turkish airspace loaded unnecessary weight, which led to an increase of fuel flow and added to the fuel consumption [20] These studies served to highlight the need to develop trajectory optimization algorithms to reduce fuel consumption. Franco and Rivas developed an algorithm able to compute the optimal speeds for fixed cruise altitudes by taking into account a Required Time of Arrival (RTA) constraint [21]. Felix-Patron implemented the golden section search algorithm to find, within a pre-defined set of altitudes, the optimal altitude that reduced the fuel consumption for short haul flights [27]. Franco and Rivas [39] optimized the trajectory by taking into account different phases of flight such as climb, cruise and descent over a pre-defined ground track. Presents the results obtained, and the paper ends with the conclusions and recommendations for future work
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