Preventing aircraft from wildlife strikes using trajectory planning based on the enhanced artificial potential field approach

Abstract

Wildlife strikes refer to collisions between animals and aircraft during flight or taxiing. While such collisions can occur at any phase of a flight, the majority occur during takeoff and landing, particularly at lower altitudes. Given that most reported collisions involve birds, our focus was primarily on bird strikes, in line with statistical data. In the aviation industry, aircraft safety takes precedence, and attention must also be paid to optimizing route distances to minimize operational costs, posing a multi-objective optimization challenge. However, wildlife strikes can occur suddenly, even when aircraft strictly adhere to their trajectories. The aircraft may then need to deviate from their planned paths to avoid these collisions, necessitating the adoption of alternative routes. In this article, we proposed a method that combines artificial potential energy (APE) and morphological smoothing to not only reduce the risk of collisions but also maintain the aircraft's trajectory as closely as possible. The concept of APE was applied to flight trajectory planning (TP), where the aircraft's surroundings were conceptualized as an abstract artificial gravitational field. This field exerts a "gravitational force" towards the destination, while bird obstacles exert a "repulsive force" on the aircraft. Through simulation studies, our proposed method helps smooth the trajectory and enhance its security.