Trajectory generation for aircraft subject to dynamic weather uncertainty

Abstract

Determining safe aircraft trajectories that avoid hazardous weather regions and other aircraft while efficiently using the available airspace is an important problem. Although tactical weather forecast maps have been available, their use in automated aircraft trajectory generation has not been fully explored or implemented. We consider aircraft trajectory generation using forecast data available from the Corridor Integrated Weather System product. The forecasts, updated at regular intervals, are used to design no-fly regions. We propose a receding horizon trajectory generation based on the dynamic nature of the forecast. Our method uses current environment information and incrementally updated forecast to update and optimize the trajectories. Simulations are shown based on forecast weather and indicate the advantage of taking into account time-varying forecasts in the planning horizon.