North Atlantic Aircraft Trajectory Optimization

• Published in: IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems
• Main Authors: Rodionova, Olga, Sbihi, Mohammed, Delahaye, Daniel, Mongeau, Marcel
• Other Authors: ENAC - Laboratoire de Mathématiques Appliquées, Informatique et Automatique pour l'Aérien (MAIAA), Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile (ENAC), Institut de Mathématiques de Toulouse UMR5219 (IMT), Université Toulouse Capitole (UT Capitole), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - Toulouse (INSA Toulouse), Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (UT2J), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2014
• Subjects: Aircraft trajectory optimization; North Atlantic oceanic airspace; genetic algorithm (GA); organized track system (OTS); waypoints; [MATH.MATH-OC]Mathematics [math]/Optimization and Control [math.OC]; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://enac.hal.science/hal-00981337; https://enac.hal.science/hal-00981337/document; https://enac.hal.science/hal-00981337/file/Rodionova_IEEETITS2014.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1109/TITS.2014.2312315

International audience North Atlantic oceanic airspace accommodates air traffic between North America and Europe. Radar-based surveillance is not applicable in this vast and highly congested airspace. For conflict-free flight progress, the organized track system is established in the North Atlantic and flights are prescribed to follow predefined oceanic tracks. Rerouting of aircraft from one track to another is very rarely applied because of large separation standards. As a result, aircraft often follow routes that are not optimal in view of their departure and destination points. This leads to an increase in aircraft cruising time and congestion level in continental airspace at input and output. Implementing new technologies and airborne-based control procedures will enable a significant decrease in the present separation standards and improvement of the traffic situation in the North Atlantic. The aim of the present study is to show the benefits that can be expected from such a reduction of separation standards. Optimal conflict-free trajectories are constructed for several flight sets based on the new proposed separation standards, with respect to the flight input data and oceanic winds. This paper introduces a mathematical model, proposes an optimization formulation of the problem, constructs two test problems based on real air-traffic data, and presents very encouraging results of simulations for these data.