Theoretical Optimal Trajectories for Reducing the Environmental Impact of Commercial Aircraft Operations

Abstract

This work describes initial results obtained from an ongoing research involving the development of optimization algorithms which are capable of performing multi-disciplinary aircraft trajectory optimization processes. A short description of both the rationale behind the initial selection of a suitable optimization technique and the status of the optimization algorithms is firstly presented. The optimization algorithms developed are subsequently utilized to analyze different case studies involving one or more flight phases present in actual aircraft flight profiles. Several optimization processes focusing on the minimization of total flight time, fuel burned and oxides of nitrogen (NO x ) emissions are carried out and their results are presented and discussed. When compared with others obtained using commercially available optimizers, results of these optimization processes show satisfactory level of accuracy (average discrepancies ~2%). It is expected that these optimization algorithms can be utilized in future to efficiently compute realistic, optimal and 'greener' aircraft trajectories, thereby minimizing the environmental impact of commercial aircraft operations.

Various aircraft routing options for air traffic simulation in the chemistry-climate model EMAC 2.53: AirTraf 2.0

“…the NO x emission by 0.3 %pt, whereas this option increases flight time by 0.2 %pt and fuel use by 0.2 %pt, compared to those measures of the fuel option Celis et al (2014). addressed a single-objective flight trajectory optimization on total fuel use and on NO x emission, respectively, with the same simulation setup described above.…”

Transport Aircraft Conceptual Design Optimization Using Real Coded Genetic Algorithm

“…Also, they are tolerant of noise in the objective function and have no difficulty with categorical variable changes [20]. In addition, GAs can explore the solution space in multiple directions at once, hence increasing the chance of finding the optimal solution [21]. Also, GA is robust in locating optimal solution and reducing the computational effort than other conventional heuristics [20].…”

Lateral Reference Trajectory Algorithm Using Ant Colony Optimization

“…The set of altitudes and speeds that compose a flight is called the vertical reference trajectory. Algorithms optimizing the vertical reference trajectory have been developed by using Optimal control [15][16][17][18][19], Mixed-Integer Linear Programming [20,21], and Dynamic Programming [22,23]. Most of these techniques use the point-mass equations of motion and the BADA database provided by Eurocontrol to compute the aircraft fuel burn.…”