Multi disciplinary optimization of flight trajectories

Throughout the world searching for alternatives while optimizing existing technologies to overcome environmental emissions & fuel consumption are the most critical challenges associated with commercial aviation today. Currently several organisations worldwide are focussing their efforts towards large collaborative projects whose main objective is to identify the best alternatives or routes to reduce the environmental impact and fuel efficiency of aircraft operations. This paper reviews the optimal trajectories integrating the various models and optimiser into a suitable interfacing framework to define the best trajectory in terms of specific fuel consumption, environmental gain and time. The main objective of the framework is to integrate a set of specific models and perform multi-objective optimisation, of flight trajectories with the chief objective to optimise environmental parameters according to predetermined operational and environmental constraints. The models considered for this study include the Aircraft Performance Model, Engine Simulation Model and the Gaseous Emissions Model. It further discusses the results to demonstrate and establish the environmental gain in terms of specific fuel consumption that the trajectory optimization activity achieves at a primary level. It thereby forms the basis of complete reference base-line trajectories which will be used to determine more accurate environmental gains that can be expected through optimisation with the integration of more models in the future.