Associate Professor Masaki Inoue of Keio University's Faculty of Science and Engineering, Minami Ishii (second year master's degree student) and Shinji Wada (master's degree student at the time of the research) of the same university's Graduate School of Science and Engineering, and others studied fuel consumption, environmental impact, and noise. We have developed a new traffic management method, ``Semi-CDO (Semi-Continuous Descent Operation),'' which leads to reduced aircraft arrival management.
Airline demand, which had been sluggish due to the coronavirus pandemic, is heading for recovery and is expected to further increase in the future.On the other hand, there are still issues that must be addressed while meeting the growing demand for aviation, such as curbing soaring fuel costs, reducing environmental impact such as CO2 emissions, and reducing aircraft noise.What is expected is efficient air traffic management using AI technology.
In arrival management, the use of continuous descent operations (CDO), which is an operation method in which aircraft descend continuously while maintaining an idle state during the descent stage, is attracting attention. CDOs can save fuel by operating in idle mode, and are also effective in reducing noise and CO2 emissions because they can maintain high altitudes.However, compared to step-down descent, which is the traditional method of descent, CDO is difficult to predict the arrival time of the aircraft, and there is less scope for adjusting the arrival time. Stay in operation.In order to make full use of the CDO's capabilities, the group has developed ``Semi-CDO,'' which adds an arrival time control function to the CDO.
Although Semi-CDO is based on CDO operation, it has been discovered that arrival time can be indirectly controlled by adjusting altitude during descent, and has incorporated an altitude adjustment algorithm based on a mathematical model. .In contrast to a CDO that descends continuously, simulations of a Semi-CDO that descends continuously while adjusting its altitude and speed show that the range of arrival time adjustment can be greatly expanded.
The results of this research are expected to be a step towards expanding the use of CDO to include daytime operations.The company says that efficient and reliable air traffic control will be achieved by combining AI technology such as altitude adjustment algorithms with controllers who have experience and a wide perspective.
Paper information:[Journal of Aircraft] Semi-Continuous Descent Operation: A Fuel-Efficient Interval Management Algorithm
