Systems And Methods Providing A Fuel-efficient RTA Implementation With Uncertain Winds

Abstract

Flight management systems and control methods for meeting a required time of arrival (RTA) with reduced fuel burn. An example method can account for probabilistic wind forecast uncertainty in RTA calculations by reformulating the speed and thrust profile problem as a multi-stage stochastic program, using a wind forecast uncertainty model to generate scenario sets for the fuel optimization problem. The method can iteratively calculate a fuel-efficient advised air speed for achieving an RTA over a flight path with an arbitrary number of recourse points.