Real-time bi-level aircraft trajectory optimisation under the presence of unsteady wind
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Published version
Author(s)
Shihua, James M
Nguyen, Chris HC
Liem, Rhea P
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In the era towards green aviation, efficient flight operations and environmental sustainability are paramount concerns for airlines. In day-to-day operations, this can be achieved by flying aircraft in favourable wind conditions to reduce economic cost and environmental impact. This paper presents a bi-level aircraft trajectory optimisation algorithm designed for operations in unsteady wind conditions. The algorithm begins with a modified Dijkstra approach applied to a coarse grid, providing a globally optimised solution in the low-fidelity space. This is followed by high-fidelity optimisation using shape optimisation principles with free-form deformation. By reformulating the problem as a shape optimisation, the constrained optimisation is converted into an unconstrained one with fewer variables, thereby substantially reducing the computational cost. The bi-level approach accelerates convergence and minimises the risk of local minima. Applied to 2435 flights operated by our airline partner in 2022, the algorithm demonstrated average travel time reductions of 13.1%, 1.7%, and 1.2% for routes between Hong Kong and London, Sydney, and Singapore, respectively. The method is shown to be especially effective for east-west flights in the presence of jet streams. With GPU acceleration and CPU multiprocessing, the algorithm enables real-time trajectory optimisation, offering notable potential benefits in terms of sustainability, passenger comfort, and operational efficiency.
Date Issued
2026-03-01
Date Acceptance
2025-06-02
Citation
Optimization and Engineering, 2026, 27 (1), pp.167-191
ISSN
1389-4420
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Start Page
167
End Page
191
Journal / Book Title
Optimization and Engineering
Volume
27
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
10.1007/s11081-025-10005-0
Subjects
Trajectory optimisation
Unsteady wind
Dijkstra's algorithm
Shape optimisation
Green aviation
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2025-07-23