For long flights, the cruise is the longest phase and where the largest amount of fuel is consumed. An in-cruise optimization method has been implemented to calculate the optimal trajectory that reduces the flight cost. A three-dimensional grid has been created, coupling lateral navigation and vertical navigation profiles. With a dynamic analysis of the wind, the aircraft can perform a horizontal deviation or change altitudes via step climbs to reduce fuel consumption. As the number of waypoints and possible step climbs is increased, the number of flight trajectories increases exponentially; thus, a genetic algorithm has been implemented to reduce the total number of calculated trajectories compared to an exhaustive search. The aircraft’s model has been obtained from a performance database, which is currently used in the commercial flight management system studied in this paper. A 5% average flight cost reduction has been obtained.
Flight Trajectory Optimization Through Genetic Algorithms for Lateral and Vertical Integrated Navigation
Journal of Aerospace Information Systems ; 12 , 8 ; 533-544
2015-08-01
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Vertical flight trajectory optimization of heavy military airlift aircraft
British Library Online Contents | 2010
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