Estimating aircraft drag polar using open flight surveillance data and a stochastic total energy model

In air traffic management research, aircraft performance models are often used to generate and analyze aircraft trajectories. Although a crucial part of the aircraft performance model, the aerodynamic property of aircraft is rarely available for public research purposes, as it is protected by aircraft manufacturers for commercial reasons. In...

OpenAP: An open-source aircraft performance model for air transportation studies and simulations

Air traffic simulations serve as common practice to evaluate different concepts and methods for air transportation studies. The aircraft performance model is a key element that supports these simulation-based studies. It is also an important component for simulation-independent studies, such as air traffic optimization and prediction studies....

Particle filter for aircraft mass estimation and uncertainty modeling

This article investigates the estimation of aircraft mass and thrust settings of departing aircraft using a recursive Bayesian method called particle filtering. The method is based on a nonlinear state-space system derived from aircraft point-mass performance models. Using only aircraft surveillance data, flight states such as position,...

WRAP: An open-source kinematic aircraft performance model

Open access to flight data from Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) has provided researchers with more insights for air traffic management than aircraft tracking alone. With large quantities of trajectory data collected from a wide range of different aircraft types, it is possible to extract accurate aircraft performance...

pyModeS: Decoding Mode-S Surveillance Data for Open Air Transportation Research

The availability of low-cost automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) receivers has given researchers the ability to make use of large amounts of aircraft state data. This data is being used to support air transportation research in performance study, trajectory prediction, procedure analysis, and airspace design. However, aircraft...

Aircraft initial mass estimation using Bayesian inference method

Aircraft mass is a crucial piece of information for studies on aircraft performance, trajectory prediction, and many other topics of aircraft traffic management. However, It is a common challenge for researchers, as well as air traffic control, to access this proprietary information. Previously, several studies have proposed methods to estimate...

Weather field reconstruction using aircraft surveillance data and a novel meteo-particle model

Wind and temperature data are important parameters in aircraft performance studies. The lack of accurate measurements of these parameters forces researchers to rely on numerical weather prediction models, which are often filtered for a larger area with decreased local accuracy. Aircraft, however, also transmit information related to weather...

Flight Extraction and Phase Identification for Large Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast Datasets

AUTOMATIC dependent surveillance–broadcast (ADS-B) [1,2] is widely implemented in modern commercial aircraft and will become mandatory equipment in 2020. Flight state information such as position, velocity, and vertical rate are broadcast by tens of thousands of aircraft around the world constantly using onboard ADS-B transponders. These data...