Iterative Learning Control for Precise Aircraft Trajectory Tracking in Continuous Climb and Descent Operations

This paper presents an iterative learning control method for precise aircraft trajectory tracking. Given a trajectory to be followed by an aircraft with a dynamical model which is assumed to be known, the proposed algorithm improves the system performance in following the trajectory using the spatial and temporal deviations suffered by previous flights to anticipate recurring disturbances and compensate for them proactively by generating a new reference trajectory to be followed, which is the input for the aircraft’s own trajectory tracking controller. The proposed method is tested in a simulated busy terminal maneuvering area in which the time-based separation between aircraft is short enough for similar weather conditions to be expected. The numerical experiments are conducted considering aircraft of the same type, which are assumed to follow the same trajectory in two operations in which precise trajectory tracking is essential: continuous climb and descent operations. The obtained results show a significant reduction of the trajectory tracking error in few iterations, proving the effectiveness of the iterative learning control method applied to commercial aircraft trajectory tracking. Higher precision in trajectory tracking implies higher predictability of aircraft trajectories, which results in an improvement of the efficiency and capacity of the air traffic management system and in reductions of costs and emissions.