Systems and methods providing a fuel-efficient RTA implementation with uncertain winds

摘要

Flight management systems and control methods for meeting a required time of arrival (RTA) with reduced fuel burn. The method can account for probabilistic wind forecast uncertainty in RTA calculations by reformulating the speed and thrust profile problem as a multi-stage stochastic program, using a wind forecast uncertainty model to generate scenario sets for the fuel optimization problem. The method can iteratively calculate a fuel-efficient advised air speed for achieving an RTA over a flight path with an arbitrary number of recourse points.;Methods for creating wind forecast uncertainty models applicable to a variety of routes through a given airspace, and for use with the flight management systems and control methods. An example wind forecast uncertainty model can be position-specific, data-driven and based on a Markov chain representing error values between historical wind speed data and forecasted wind speed data long a planned flight route or between an origin-destination pair.

主权项

1. A computer implemented method for modeling wind forecast uncertainty along a planned flight route comprising:
receiving historical flight data comprising recorded wind speeds along a planned flight route having an origin and destination; receiving forecasted wind speeds along the planned flight route; generating error values along the planned flight route based on comparing the recorded wind speeds and forecasted wind speeds; dividing the planned flight route into discrete segments based on pre-defined intervals; clustering the error values at the intervals; preparing a histogram for each cluster of error values by binning the error values in each cluster by intensity; generating, by a processor, a set of transition probability matrices by stepping through the histograms and recording transition probabilities between positions; and modeling, based on the comparing, wind speed uncertainty using a correlated stochastic process, wherein modeling the wind speed uncertainty comprises forming a Markov chain as a function of position along the planned flight route and the transition probabilities between the positions.