Multi-model ensemble wake vortex prediction
Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology
ISSN: 0002-2667
Article publication date: 7 March 2016
Abstract
Purpose
Wake vortices that are generated by an aircraft as a consequence of lift constitute a potential danger to the following aircraft. To predict and avoid dangerous situations, wake vortex transport and decay models have been developed. Being based on different model physics, they can complement each other with their individual strengths. This paper investigates the skill of a Multi-Model Ensemble (MME) approach to improve prediction performance. Therefore, this paper aims to use wake vortex models developed by NASA (APA3.2, APA3.4, TDP2.1) and by DLR (P2P). Furthermore, this paper analyzes the possibility to use the ensemble spread to compute uncertainty envelopes.
Design/methodology/approach
An MME approach called Reliability Ensemble Averaging (REA) is adapted and used to the wake vortex predictions. To train the ensemble, a set of wake vortex measurements accomplished at the airports of Frankfurt (WakeFRA), Munich (WakeMUC) and at a special airport Oberpfaffenhofen was applied.
Findings
The REA approach can outperform the best member of the ensemble, on average, regarding the root-mean-square error. Moreover, the ensemble delivers reasonable uncertainty envelopes.
Practical implications
Reliable wake vortex predictions may be applicable for both tactical optimization of aircraft separation at airports and airborne wake vortex prediction and avoidance.
Originality/value
Ensemble approaches are widely used in weather forecasting, but they have never been applied to wake vortex predictions. Until today, the uncertainty envelopes for wake vortex forecasts have been computed among others from perturbed initial conditions or perturbed physics as well as from uncertainties from environmental conditions or from safety margins but not from the spread of structurally independent model forecasts.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
We thank Fred Proctor and Nash’at Ahmad of the NASA Langley Research Center for the provision of the APA and TDP models, for fruitful discussions at the NASA-DLR workshops and their continous support. In future work not only the exchanged models but also measurement data from exchanged wake vortex campaigns shall be included.
Citation
Körner, S. and Holzäpfel, F. (2016), "Multi-model ensemble wake vortex prediction", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 88 No. 2, pp. 331-340. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-02-2015-0068
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited