Efficient and Effective 4D Trajectory Data Cleansing

As the rapid development of aviation industry and newly emerging crowd-sourcing projects such as Flightradar24 and FlightAware,large amount of air traffic data,particularly four-dimension(4D)trajectory data,have become available for the public.In order to guarantee the accuracy and reliability of results,data cleansing is the first step in analyzing 4D trajectory data,including error identification and mitigation.Data cleansing techniques for the 4D trajectory data are investigated.Back propagation(BP)neural network algorithm is applied to repair errors.Newton interpolation method is used to obtain even-spaced trajectory samples over a uniform distribution of each flight’s 4D trajectory data.Furthermore,a new method is proposed to compress data while maintaining the intrinsic characteristics of the trajectories.Density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise(DBSCAN)is applied to identify remaining outliers of sample points.Experiments are performed on a data set of one-day 4D trajectory data over Europe.The results show that the proposed method can achieve more efficient and effective results than the existing approaches.The work contributes to the first step of data preprocessing and lays foundation for further downstream 4D trajectory analysis.

4D Trajectory Tracking Control for Aircraft Based on Point-to-Point Iterative Learning Control with Current-Cycle Feedback

A point-to-point iterative learning control method with the current-cycle feedback is proposed to enable aircraft to achieve an accurate four-dimensional(4D) trajectory tracking. To this end,the 4D trajectory tracking control problem is formulated into a point-to-point tracking control issue with an external disturbance. Then,the optimal point-to-point iterative learning control law is derived based on the successive projection method. Further,the current-cycle feedback error is added to the control law,so that the tracking error is reduced in both time and iteration domains. Finally,a numerical simulation is carried out using the kinematic model of an unmanned aerial vehicle and 4D trajectory data. Obtained results demonstrate that the proposed method can quickly reduce the trajectory tracking error even in the presence of gust interferences. Compared with the commonly used average velocity method and the velocity correction method,the proposed method makes full use of the past and current running data,and can continuously improve the accuracy of 4D trajectory tracking with the repetitive operation of aircraft between city pairs.

Bio-inspired Collision-free 4D Trajectory Generation for UAVs Using Tau Strategy

Inspired by the general tau theory in animal motion planning, a collision-free four-dimensional （4D） trajectory generation method is presented for multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles （UAVs）. This method can generate a group of optimal or near-optimal collision-free 4D trajectories, the position and velocity of which are synchronously planned in accordance with the arrival time. To enlarge the shape adjustment capability of trajectories with zero initial acceleration, a new strategy named intrinsic tau harmonic guidance strategy is proposed on the basis of general tau theory and harmonic motion. In the case of multiple UAVs, the 4D trajectories generated by the new strategy are optimized by the bionic Particle Swarm Optimization （PSO） algorithm. In order to ensure flight safety, the protected airspace zone is used for collision detection, and two collision resolution approaches are applied to resolve the remaining conflicts after global trajectory optimization. Numerous simulation results of the simultaneous arrival missions demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively provide more flyable and safer 4D trajectories than that of the existing methods.

4D ConflictFree Trajectory Planning for Fixed-Wing UAV

Four-dimensional trajectory based operation(4D-TBO)is believed to enhance the planning and execution of efficient flights,reduce potential conflicts and resolve upcoming tremendous flight demand.Most of the 4D trajectory planning related studies have focused on manned aircraft instead of unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs).This paper focuses on planning conflict-free 4D trajectories for fixed-wing UAVs before the departure or during the flight planning.A 4D trajectory generation technique based on Tau theory is developed,which can incorporate the time constraints over the waypoint sequence in the flight plan.Then the 4D trajectory is optimized by the particle swarm optimization(PSO)algorithm.Further simulations are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method,which would offer a good chance for integrating UAV into civil airspace in the future.

A multi-objective multi-memetic algorithm for network-wide conflict-free 4D flight trajectories planning

Under the demand of strategic air traffic flow management and the concept of trajectory based operations（TBO）,the network-wide 4D flight trajectories planning（N4DFTP） problem has been investigated with the purpose of safely and efficiently allocating 4D trajectories（4DTs）（3D position and time） for all the flights in the whole airway network.Considering that the introduction of large-scale 4DTs inevitably increases the problem complexity,an efficient model for strategiclevel conflict management is developed in this paper.Specifically,a bi-objective N4 DFTP problem that aims to minimize both potential conflicts and the trajectory cost is formulated.In consideration of the large-scale,high-complexity,and multi-objective characteristics of the N4DFTP problem,a multi-objective multi-memetic algorithm（MOMMA） that incorporates an evolutionary global search framework together with three problem-specific local search operators is implemented.It is capable of rapidly and effectively allocating 4DTs via rerouting,target time controlling,and flight level changing.Additionally,to balance the ability of exploitation and exploration of the algorithm,a special hybridization scheme is adopted for the integration of local and global search.Empirical studies using real air traffic data in China with different network complexities show that the proposed MOMMA is effective to solve the N4 DFTP problem.The solutions achieved are competitive for elaborate decision support under a TBO environment.