A Stochastic Switched Optimal Control Approach to Formation Mission Design for Commercial Aircraft

This article studies the formation mission design problem for commercial aircraft in presence of uncertainties. Specifically, it considers uncertainties departure times and fuel burn savings trailing aircraft. Given several flights, consists arranging them or solo flights finding trajectories that minimize expected value DOC flights. The is formulated as an optimal control a stochastic switched dynamical system solved using nonintrusive gPC-based collocation. collocation method converts SSOCP into augmented deterministic problem. With this approach, small number sample points random parameters are used to jointly solve particular instances obtained solutions then expressed orthogonal polynomial expansions terms these points. technique allows statistical global sensitivity analysis be conducted at low computational cost. aim establish if, uncertainties, beneficial with respect flight direct operating costs. Several numerical experiments have been which on saving during considered. results demonstrate benefits can achieved even