Performance-based emergency landing trajectory planning applying meta-heuristic and Dubins paths

Abstract

Emergency Landing is a complex problem of optimal path planning of an impaired airplane in presence of obstacles, while the airplane performance characteristics have degraded. Some in-flight failures can affect the airplane dynamics and therefore the new dynamic constraints must be considered in flight planning to the desired landing site. This paper introduces a novel hybrid form of Dubins-simulated annealing (HDSA) optimization framework for emergency landing. The proposed architecture applies Dubins paths and Apollonius' tangent line to generate candidate pieces of trajectories respecting the post-failure performance characteristics of the distressed airplane. The optimization pattern is used to select the optimal combination of the candidate trajectories based on the cost functions and the environmental constraints to lead the airplane to the desired landing site. Analytical performance based equations are developed to achieve an admissible solution in emergency trajectory planning. The goal is to provide a general optimal framework, which can enhance the flight management system by assisting the pilot to plan the most suitable and admissible trajectory to the landing site in emergency flight conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through simulations.