Flight simulation for Aerospace planes: Tool development plan

Flight simulation for advanced launchers

Optimization of RNAV Noise abatement arrival trajectories

Preliminary trajectory design for a solar polar observatory using SEP and multiple gravity assists

Satellite solar observatories have always been of central importance to heliophysics; while there have been numerous such missions, the solar poles have been extremely under-observed. This paper proposes to use low-thrust as well as multiple gravity assists to reach the enormous energies required obtain high heliocentric inclinations. Two novel...

An Efficient Application of the MOEA/D Algorithm for Designing Noise Abatement Departure Trajectories

In an effort to allow to increase the number of aircraft and airport operations while mitigating their negative impacts (e.g., noise and pollutant emission) on near-airport communities, the optimal design of new departure routes with less noise and fuel consumption becomes more important. In this paper, a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm...

Guided Stochastic Optimization for Motion Planning

Learning from Demonstration (LfD) is a family of methods used to teach robots specific tasks. It is used to assist them with the increasing difficulty of performing manipulation tasks in a scalable manner. The state-of-the-art in collaborative robots allows for simple LfD approaches that can handle limited parameter changes of a task. These...

Trajectory Design for a Solar-Sail Mission to Asteroid 2016 HO3

This paper proposes the use of solar-sail technology currently under development at NASA Langley Research Center for a CubeSat rendezvous mission with asteroid 2016 HO3, a quasi-satellite of Earth. Time-optimal trajectories are sought for within a 2022–2023 launch window, starting from an assumed launcher ejection condition in the Earth-Moon...

Solar-sail control laws for perturbed Earth-bound trajectories

Solar sailing is a spacecraft propulsion method relying solely on solar radiation pressure to provide thrust and is therefore propellantless by nature. Although it represents a practical and promising propulsion system particularly suited for heliocentric flight regimes, near-term sailcraft missions will remain Earth-bound due to the current...

Concept of climate-charged airspaces: a potential policy instrument for internalizing aviation's climate impact of non-CO₂ effects

Approximately 50–75% of aviation's climate impact is caused by non-CO₂ effects, like the production of ozone and the formation of contrail cirrus clouds, which can be effectively prevented by re-routing flights around highly climate-sensitive areas. Here, we discuss options how to incentivize re-routing approaches and apply...

OpenAP.top: Open Flight Trajectory Optimization for Air Transport and Sustainability Research

Trajectory optimization has been an active area of research for air transport studies for several decades. But almost all flight optimizers proposed in the literature remain close-sourced, which presents a major disadvantage for the advancement of scientific research. This optimization depends on aircraft performance models, emission models, and...

Evaluating Aviation Emission Inefficiencies and Reduction Challenges with Electric Flights

Inefficiencies in flight operations, like deviations and non-optimal flight speed or altitude, are directly linked to flight emission inefficiencies. Quantifying these emission inefficiencies and studying potential mitigation strategies is certainly beneficial for the sustainability of the aviation industry. In this paper, we analyze emission...

Learning Interaction-Aware Guidance for Trajectory Optimization in Dense Traffic Scenarios

Autonomous navigation in dense traffic scenarios remains challenging for autonomous vehicles (AVs) because the intentions of other drivers are not directly observable and AVs have to deal with a wide range of driving behaviors. To maneuver through dense traffic, AVs must be able to reason how their actions affect others (interaction model)...