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Trajectory optimization in daily operations

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Abstract

This study embeds multi-criteria optimized trajectories in today’s procedures of flight planning, preparing and operations. Therefore, European air traffic procedures are substantiated by a review of today’s regulative provisions and possibilities of intended deviations from filed flight plans initiated by both air traffic control and flight crew. As a reference for future flight planning, we modeled and described multi-criteria optimized trajectories. Thereupon, we developed an efficient and reliable algorithm for the adaption of waypoint-less optimized trajectories to the current navaid infrastructure. This method aims at increasing in airline efficiency in daily operations. For validation purposes, an actual flight plan has been calculated using the commercial flight-planning tool JetPlan.com by Jeppesen and is compared to our adapted trajectories. The comparison allows for the quantification of the benefits of our adapted flight paths against the restrictions of today’s flight planning. Here, we used a performance metric, considering distance flown, time of flight and fuel burn.

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The data is taken from the NMOC databank, provided by Eurocontrol

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Acknowledgements

This research is part of the research project ProfiFuel, including the project partners Jeppesen, TU Dresden and Gesellschaft für Luftverkehrsforschung GmbH and is financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Specifically, the authors would like to thank Alexander Lau (DLR, Institute for Air Transportation Systems) for the extraction of filed and flown historical routes (Fig. 8) and for valuable hints regarding today’s geopolitical difficulties in flight operations. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank Dr. Michael Schultz (DLR, Institute of flight Guidance, Air Transportation) for background knowledge regarding future flight planning and data exchange.

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  1. Chair of Air Transport Technology and Logistics, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Judith Rosenow, David Strunck & Hartmut Fricke

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  1. Judith Rosenow
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  2. David Strunck
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  3. Hartmut Fricke
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Correspondence to Judith Rosenow.

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Rosenow, J., Strunck, D. & Fricke, H. Trajectory optimization in daily operations. CEAS Aeronaut J 11, 333–343 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13272-019-00429-7

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