Optimal Path Planning for Soaring Flight
Lucas Bonin, Daniel Delahaye, Andréas Guitart, Éric Féron, Xavier Prats · UPCommons institutional repository (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) · 2022
In the last couple of years, performances of light soaring aircraft (para gliders, hang glider or light sailplane) have increased significantly, allowing pilots to fly great distances using only the convective energy of the atmosphere. This activity, called "Cross-Country flying" or "soaring", requires topological and aerological knowledge and a lot of pre-flight preparation in order to make the right decisions, and thus maximize the flying distance or minimize the flying time in a race. To optimize these flights, a pre-tactical decision support tool has been developed. This tool results from the adaptation of a sampling-based algorithm (FMT*). It is extended in such a way it can deal with differential constraints associated with light soaring aircraft, operating in a convective atmosphere, in a field of wind and close to reliefs. The method has been validated on real light soaring aircraft trajectories.