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Assessment and Future Directions of Nonlinear Model Predictive ...

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Receding Horizon Control for Free-Flight PathOptimizationXiao-Bing Hu 1 <strong>and</strong> Wen-Hua Chen 21 Department <strong>of</strong> Informatics, University <strong>of</strong> Sussex, UKxiaobing.Hu@Sussex.ac.uk2 Department <strong>of</strong> Aero. <strong>and</strong> Auto. Engineering, Loughborough University, UKW.Chen@lboro.ac.ukSummary. This paper presents a Receding Horizon Control (RHC) algorithm to theproblem <strong>of</strong> on-line flight path optimization for aircraft in a dynamic Free-Flight (FF)environment. The motivation to introduce the concept <strong>of</strong> RHC is to improve the robustperformance <strong>of</strong> solutions in a dynamic <strong>and</strong> uncertain environment, <strong>and</strong> also to satisfythe restrictive time limit in the real-time optimization <strong>of</strong> this complicated air trafficcontrol problem. Compared with existing algorithms, the new algorithm proves moreefficient <strong>and</strong> promising for practical applications.1 Introduction“Free-Flight”(FF) is one <strong>of</strong> the most promising strategies for future air trafficcontrol (ATC) systems [1, 2]. Within the FF framework, each individual aircrafthas the first responsibility to plan its flight in terms <strong>of</strong> safety, efficiency <strong>and</strong>flexibility. One <strong>of</strong> the key enabling techniques is real-time path planning usingonboard flight management systems. Reference [3] proposes an effective GeneticAlgorithm (GA) for searching optimal flight paths in an FF environment, whereno pre-defined flight routes network exists. However, two questions arise for theGA in [3]: how to cope with unreliable information in a dynamic environment,<strong>and</strong> how to improve real-time properties.This paper introduces the concept <strong>of</strong> Receding Horizon Control (RHC) to theGA in [3] <strong>and</strong> then develops a more efficient algorithm for online optimizingflight paths in a dynamical FF environment. As an N-step-ahead online optimizationstrategy, firstly, RHC provides a promising way to deal with unreliableinformation for far future, <strong>and</strong> therefore increase the robustness/adoptation <strong>of</strong>the algorithms against environmental uncertainties/changes; secondly, the introduction<strong>of</strong> RHC can significantly reduce the heavy computational burden <strong>of</strong> theGA in [3] to an acceptable level. These achievements mainly rely on carefullychoosing horizon length <strong>and</strong> properly designing terminal penalty in the newlyproposed algorithm.R. Findeisen et al. (Eds.): <strong>Assessment</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Future</strong> <strong>Directions</strong>, LNCIS 358, pp. 565–572, 2007.springerlink.com c○ Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007

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