A Collaborative Approach to Trajectory Modeling Validation

Abstract

Air service providers view the growth in future air traffic demand exceeding that of capacity, making it increasingly difficult to maintain yet alone improve the current levels of safety and efficiency. Advanced Air Traffic Management (ATM) and flight deck decision support tool (DST) capabilities are seen as the functional enablers of the future ATM concepts needed to increase capacity by two-threefold. Such automation will provide support in flight data, metering, and conflict prediction/resolution functions to name a few. DST capabilities depend directly on the performance of the underlying trajectory predictor(s) (TP) that provide the anticipated future path of the aircraft. The accuracy of the TP is critical to the success of these DST functions.A joint international effort has begun to develop methodologies and resources for the common development, validation, and improvement of trajectory prediction capabilities. Common methods and resources for TP validation will benefit the ATM automation community at large by providing tools, methods, and validation data that no one organization could afford to develop on their own. A generic TP structure has been constructed and decomposed into individual services that readily map to all the US and European TPs studied. This TP structure enables specific TP elements to be isolated and validated using different types of actual "flown" trajectories from simulation and field/flight observations. A common TP validation strategy has been developed for universal application to each element of the TP structure. The TP validation strategy is complemented by a broad database of actual trajectory recordings posted on a website and formatted in the Extensible Markup Language (XML). The methodology presented here provides the process for any developer to utilize this database to validate and improve their TP's performance. This paper outlines the TP validation strategy, describes the various types of validation data provided, XML format, and tools developed.

Vertical flight path segments sets for aircraft flight plan prediction and optimisation

“…Instead, they influence the ground-referenced segment flight path angle (FPA wind ) and the flight path parameters associated with lateral plan, such as the ground speed, the flight time and the ground distance, as illustrated in the examples presented in Figs 1-6, and in Equations (1)- (12). Consequently, for the climb, descent, acceleration or deceleration segments, the corresponding still-air average speeds, flight path angles, and flight times determined using Equations (1)- (6) are stored along with the matching vertical flight path segments' performance data and used during the lateral flight plan profile computations, generating a full lateral and vertical flight plan.…”

“…The flight plan data can also be computed by ground-based algorithms, such as the algorithms used by the Air Traffic Management (ATM) for traffic prediction, planning, and supervision. These algorithms have expanded the series of functions used for aircraft flight path computation (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10) by facilitating specific tasks such as conflicts detection and resolution (11,12) , circumventing areas affected by adverse weather (10,(13)(14)(15)(16) , route selection (13)(14)(15)(16)(17) , and developing of routing strategies for traffic flow augmentation (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22) .…”

A Demonstration of an Aircraft Intent Interchange Specification for Facilitating Trajectory-Based Operations in the National Airspace System

“…In the context of trajectory prediction, aircraft intent refers to the information that unambiguously describes how the aircraft is to be operated within a certain time interval. It is anticipated that sharing aircraft intent information expressed in a structured and formal manner (e.g., according to the AIDL) can facilitate the synchronization of the predicted aircraft trajectories held by different automation systems in the context of TBO 6,11,12,13,14 .…”

“…The FAA and EUROCONTROL have taken the right steps towards this end in establishing Action Plan 16 (AP 16), Common Trajectory Prediction Capabilities. The AP 16 core team has produced a lot of work in this area [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] .…”

Applications of Formal Languages to Management of Manned and Unmanned Aircraft

“…The intent, on the other hand, provides information on the aircraft's behaviour, rather than its trajectory. According to [22], the intent information 'describes the notional path and/or constraints the aircraft will follow in the future', and it 'may be a sequence of control instructions, a flight plan, or a simple projection of the velocity vector'. In other words, the intent information provides a description of an aircraft's trajectory, but it's not the trajectory itself [16].…”