CO2 and non-CO2 balanced Environmental Scores Module for flight performance evaluation and optimisation

Abstract

The SESAR2020 exploratory research (ER4) programme CREATE (Grant 890898) developed a climate and weather aware Concept of Operations (ConOps) which encompasses a multi-aircraft 4D trajectory optimisation framework, which utilises a CO2 and non-CO2 balanced Environmental Scores Module (ESM) for the en-route flight phase. The ESM provides a computational method to evaluate the “greenness” of aircraft trajectories. Some components related to the internal ESM scoring are based on expert judgement, which is in line with the technology readiness level (TRL) 1 of the solution. Fast-time simulations were performed to demonstrate the proof-of-concept of the ESM in a multi-aircraft tactical optimisation scenario in the North-Atlantic region. The results show that, because of the simplicity of the metric, the ESM could be well used for trajectory optimisation and tactical replanning, and most likely as well as flight and ATC sector environmental performance evaluations.