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CEAS EuroGNC 2022

Optimal Path Planning for soaring flight
Lucas Bonin Master Student, ENAC, French Civil Aviation University, Toulouse, France.
Daniel Delahaye Professor, OPTIM Team Director, ENAC, French Civil Aviation University, Toulouse, France.
Andreas Guitart PhD Student, ENAC, French Civil Aviation University, Toulouse, France.
Eric Feron Professor, Kaust, Saudi-Arabia.
Xavier Prats Dept. of Physics/Aeronautics Division, Technical University of Catalonia UPC/BarcelonaTECH Castelldefels, Spain.
Abstract:
In the last couple of years, performances of light soaring aircraft (para gliders, hang glider or light sailplane) have increased significantly, allowing pilots to fly great distances using only the convective energy of the atmosphere. This activity, called "Cross-Country flying" or "soaring", requires topological and aerological knowledge and a lot of pre-flight preparation in order to make the right decisions, and thus maximize the flying distance or minimize the flying time in a race. To optimize these flights, a pre-tactical decision support tool has been developed. This tool results from the adaptation of a sampling-based algorithm (FMT*). It is extended in such a way it can deal with differential constraints associated with light soaring aircraft, operating in a convective atmosphere, in a field of wind and close to reliefs. The method has been validated on real light soaring aircraft trajectories.
Keywords: Motion planning; trajectory Design; soaring aircraft; anisotropy
 View PDF CEAS-GNC-2022-032


Lucas Bonin, Daniel Delahaye, Andreas Guitart, Eric Feron, Xavier Prats: Optimal Path Planning for soaring flight. Proceedings of the 2022 CEAS EuroGNC conference. Berlin, Germany. May 2022. CEAS-GNC-2022-032.
BibTeX entry:

@Incollection{CEAS-GNC-2022-032,
    author = {Bonin, Lucas and Delahaye, Daniel and Guitart, Andreas and Feron, Eric and Prats, Xavier},
    title = {Optimal Path Planning for soaring flight},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2022 {CEAS EuroGNC} conference},
    address = {Berlin, Germany},
    month = may,
    year = {2022},
    note = {CEAS-GNC-2022-032}
}