Automated optimal flight planning based on the aircraft intent description language

Abstract

The future air traffic management system is to be built around the notion of trajectory-based operations. It will rely on automated tools related to trajectory prediction in order to define, share, revise, negotiate and update the trajectory of the aircraft before and during the flight, in some case, in near real time. This paper illustrates how existing standards on trajectory description such as the aircraft intent description language can be enhanced including optimisation capabilities based on numerical optimal control. The Aircraft Intent Description Language is a formal language that has been created in order to describe aircraft intent information in a rigorous, unambiguous and flexible manner. It has been implemented in a platform for a modular design of the trajectory generation process. A case study is presented to explore its effectiveness and identify the requirements and needs to generate optimised aircraft intents with higher automation and flexibility. Preliminary results show the suitability of numerical optimal control to design optimised aircraft intents based on the aircraft intent description language.