Linear Programming Approach to the Development of Contrail Reduction Strategies Satisfying Operationally Feasible Constraints

A class of strategies has been proposed to reduce contrail formation in the United States airspace. A 3D grid based on weather data and the cruising altitude level of aircraft is adjusted to avoid the persistent contrail potential area with the consideration to fuel-efficiency. In this paper, the authors introduce a contrail avoidance strategy on 3D grid by considering additional operationally feasible constraints from an air traffic controller's aspect. First, shifting too many aircraft to the same cruising level will make the miles-in-trail at this level smaller than the safety separation threshold. Furthermore, the high density of aircraft at one cruising level may exceed the workload for the traffic controller. Therefore, in the authors new model the authors restrict the number of total aircraft at each level. Second, the aircraft count variation for successive intervals cannot be too drastic since the workload to manage climbing/descending aircraft is much larger than managing cruising aircraft. The contrail reduction is formulated as an integer-programming problem and the problem is shown to have the property of total unimodularity. Solving the corresponding relaxed linear programming with the simplex method provides an optimal and integral solution to the problem. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the methodology.

• Record URL:
  http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20120016837.pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  Ames Research Center
  Moffett Field, CA  United States  94035
• Authors:
  • Wei, Peng
  • Sridhar, Banavar
  • Chen, Neil
  • Sun, Dengfeng
• Publication Date: 2012-8

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 13p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air traffic control; Airspace (Aeronautics); Flight plans; Linear programming; Three dimensional displays; Workload
• Uncontrolled Terms: Contrails
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Operations and Traffic Management; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01479002
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Apr 22 2013 9:42AM