ENERGY STATE APPROACH TO THE INTEGRATED FLIGHT PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT OF COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT

The integrated aircraft flight performance management techniques are discussed in this paper based on the point-mass energy state approximation principle. The flight performance optimization algorithms, developed with energy state approximation approach, are first introduced, the functionally integrated flight path/speed control system, so called total energy control system (TECS), is then discussed, and the guidance technique and algorithms, which relate the performance optimization results directly with the TECS, are analyzed and developed. Digital simulation results for a specific transport aircraft model demonstrate the satisfactory performances of the resulted flight performance management system.

New reference trajectory optimization algorithm for a flight management system inspired in beam search

With the objective of reducing the flight cost and the amount of polluting emissions released in the atmosphere, a new optimization algorithm considering the climb, cruise and descent phases is presented for the reference vertical flight trajectory. The selection of the reference vertical navigation speeds and altitudes was solved as a discrete combinatory problem by means of a graphtree passing through nodes using the beam search optimization technique. To achieve a compromise between the execution time and the algorithm＇s ability to find the global optimal solution, a heuristic methodology introducing a parameter called ‘‘optimism coefficient was used in order to estimate the trajectory＇s flight cost at every node. The optimal trajectory cost obtained with the developed algorithm was compared with the cost of the optimal trajectory provided by a commercial flight management system（FMS）. The global optimal solution was validated against an exhaustive search algorithm（ESA）, other than the proposed algorithm. The developed algorithm takes into account weather effects, step climbs during cruise and air traffic management constraints such as constant altitude segments, constant cruise Mach, and a pre-defined reference lateral navigation route. The aircraft fuel burn was computed using a numerical performance model which was created and validated using flight test experimental data.

Research on FMC analytic algorithm of PBN track transition coding

Airborne navigation database(NavDB)coding directly affects the result of analysis on the instrument flight procedure by the modern aircraft flight management computer(FMC).A reasonable flight track transition mode can improve the track tracking accuracy and flight quality of the aircraft.According to the path terminator(PT)and track transition characteristics of the performance based navigation(PBN)instrument flight procedure and by use of the world geodetic system(WGS)-84 ellipsoidal coordinate system,the algorithms for“fly by”and“fly over”track transition connections are developed,together with the algorithms for coordinates of fix-to-altitude(FA)altitude termination point and heading-to-an-intercept(VI)track entry point and for track transition display of the navigation display(ND).According to the simulation carried out based on the PBN instrument approach procedure coding of a certain airport and the PBN route data at a high altitude,the algorithm results are consistent with the FMC-calculated results and the actual ND results.