On Friday, April 26, Aircraft Operations Lab UC3M travelled to Lausanne, Switzerland to deliver an interesting talk by prof. Manuel Soler at EPFL University’s Control Seminar Series. Our discussion focused on the vital topic of sustainable aviation, exploring innovative strategies and advancements in the field.
| Day | 26.04.2024 |
| Time | 11:00 – 12:00 h |
Title: “Flight Path to Sustainability: Control and Optimization Strategies for Climate-Conscious Aviation”
Abstract
Aviation, a cornerstone of the global economy, faces increasing scrutiny for its significant contribution to climate change. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of climate-friendly flight planning strategies to mitigate aviation’s climate impact.
At the trajectory scale, we explore the feasibility and potential of climate-optimized routing to reduce aviation’s climate footprint. By exploring various methodological approaches, including direct and indirect optimal control methods and metaheuristics, we demonstrate the effectiveness of climate-optimized routing in mitigating both CO2 emissions and non-CO2 species, such as NOx-induced ozone and methane concentrations, and persistent contrail formation, including its inherent uncertainty. Key scenarios, termed “big-hit” events, are identified, offering substantial climate impact mitigation while considering operational feasibility, costs, and robustness.
At the traffic scale, optimizing flight trajectories presents a viable strategy to mitigate non-CO2 climate impacts. However, integrating individually optimized trajectories into the air traffic management system poses challenges. To address these challenges, we propose a novel decision-making framework based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning. Leveraging advanced algorithms, our approach ensures comprehensive situational awareness and scalability for managing climate-optimal trajectories within the airspace. Extensive testing over European airspace validates the effectiveness of our framework, contributing to the development of robust strategies for climate-friendly flight planning in aviation.
