88th Annual Meeting (20-24 January 2008)

Monday, 21 January 2008
Optimized Flight Routing Based on Weather Impacts Grids
Exhibit Hall B (Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
David I. Knapp, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, White Sands Missile Range, NM; and T. Jameson, E. Measure, and A. Butler
Poster PDF (78.3 kB)
Technology developed in support of the growing U.S. military's use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) answers the requirement for fine-tuned precision weather forecasts and enroute updates of weather conditions which have not been met by current forecasting and data presentation capabilities. This same technology also has applicability to manned aircraft in military and civilian airspaces. A new Weather INtelligence-Routing (WIN-R) capability addresses the complexity of forecasting the weather for a 4-D flight route. WIN-R applies rules-based and physics-based prediction methods to generate atmospheric impacts across a given airspace and forecast period. This weather impacts grid is then applied to specific flight routes, and a route optimization scheme is then used to determine the best alternate routing for aircraft missions if adverse weather will be encountered. WIN-R also takes into account all aspects of the flight mission profile, from launch to recovery, at waypoints along the route, and at all flight altitudes, thus providing a true mission planning and execution routing tool for all aircraft.

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