Novel flight management system for real-time 4-dimensional trajectory based operations

The innovative concept and trajectory computation algorithms of a Next Generation Flight Management System (NG-FMS) are presented. The NG-FMS is developed for Four Dimensional (4D) Intent Based Operations (IBO) adhering to the requirements set by the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) and the Clean Sky Joint Technology Initiative for Aeronautics and Air Transport programmes. The NG-FMS is fully interoperable with a future ground based 4DT Planning, Negotiation and Validation (4- PNV) system, enabling automated Intent Based Operations (IBO) in the future Air Traffic Management (ATM) context. A family of 4DT intents is generated by the NG-FMS corresponding to a set of performance weightings agreed between Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP) and Airline Operation Centres (AOC). Both pseudospectral and weighted-sum methods are adopted to achieve online trajectory optimisation for a variety of operational tasks. The uncertainties affecting the nominal trajectories are investigated to obtain the total NG-FMS error budgets in various representative scenarios and operational tasks. These budgets are compared with the Required Navigation Performance (RNP) values set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for the various operational flight tasks considered.