Horizontal flight trajectory optimization considering RTA constraints

Alejandro Murrieta-Mendoza,Ruxandra Mihaela Botez,Hugo Ruiz,K Stamoulis,A Plioutsias,M Papanikou,A Apostolidis,H Karakoc

doi:10.1051/matecconf/202031402002

Alejandro Murrieta-Mendoza, Ruxandra Mihaela Botez + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/202031402002

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Abstract

The increasing of flights around the world has led to various problems for the aeronautical industry such as saturated air space and higher levels of fossil fuel consumption. The way in which en-route flights are handled should be improved in order to increase airways’ capacity. A solution is to make aircraft to arrive at specific waypoints at a time constraint called Required Time of Arrival (RTA). Fossil fuel brings as a consequence the release of polluting particles to the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides. It is thus desirable to compute the most economical trajectory in terms of fuel burn while fulfilling the RTA constraint. This article proposes a horizontal reference trajectory optimization algorithm based on the Particle Swarm Optimization technique in order to reduce fuel burn while fulfilling the RTA constraint. Results showed that for a flight without RTA constraint, up to 4% of fuel can be saved comparing against the trajectory of reference. The algorithm was normally able to meet the RTA constrain. However, aggressive RTA constraints might reduce the optimization levels of fuel compared with flights without RTA constraint.

Highlights

Air traffic is expected to grow in the forthcoming years according with market outlooks by Airbus1 and Boeing2
The traffic increase has a direct impact on the fossil fuel required to power flights, and in the number of polluting particles released to the atmosphere
The Performance DataBase (PDB) is a set of tables that provide for given inputs a certain output

Summary

Introduction

Air traffic is expected to grow in the forthcoming years according with market outlooks by Airbus and Boeing. The geographical places where traffic is expected to have an important growth are those in development: Asia, and Latin America. The traffic increase has a direct impact on the fossil fuel required to power flights, and in the number of polluting particles released to the atmosphere. Among these particles, Carbon dioxide (CO2), Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), and hydrocarbons (HC) are of interest: CO2 has been of special interest due to its effect on the global warming effect, NOx has been attributed to deplete the ozone layer [1], and HC cause health problems and reduces the air quality [2]. Fossil fuel represents an important expense for airlines as any reduction on fuel burn could positively impact profit

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