aerospace Article 3D Cruise Trajectory Optimization Inspired by a Shortest Path Algorithm Alejandro Murrieta-Mendoza y, Charles Romain y and Ruxandra Mihaela Botez * Research Laboratory in Active Controls, Avionics and Aeroservoelasticity (LARCASE), Université du Québec, École de Technolgie Supérieure, Montreal, QC H3C 1K3, Canada;
[email protected] (A.M.-M.);
[email protected] (C.R.) * Correspondence:
[email protected] These authors contributed equally to this work. y Received: 26 January 2020; Accepted: 2 July 2020; Published: 21 July 2020 Abstract: Aircrafts require a large amount of fuel in order to generate enough power to perform a flight. That consumption causes the emission of polluting particles such as carbon dioxide, which is implicated in global warming. This paper proposes an algorithm which can provide the 3D reference trajectory that minimizes the flight costs and the fuel consumption. The proposed algorithm was conceived using the Floyd–Warshall methodology as a reference. Weather was taken into account by using forecasts provided by Weather Canada. The search space was modeled as a directional weighted graph. Fuel burn was computed using the Base of Aircraft DAta (BADA) model developed by Eurocontrol. The trajectories delivered by the developed algorithm were compared to long-haul flight plans computed by a European airliner and to as-flown trajectories obtained from Flightradar24®. The results reveal that up to 2000 kg of fuel can be reduced per flight, and flight time can be also reduced by up to 11 min. Keywords: flight reference; fuel burn; pollution; flight optimization; algorithm; carbon dioxide; weather 1. Introduction Air transportation has become an important part of the world’s economic system, as it is one of the most common means of traveling long distances and a safe way to transport valuable and perishable cargo.