GTD has been recently awarded by CLEANSKY JTI to develop a system to achieve real time trajectory optimizers for avionics systems. This project called NEURAL proposes a solid approach to take advantage of the neural networks capabilities to approximate the ordinary differential equations of flight dynamics in order to achieve the High Speed Numerical Integrator pursued by the MTM. This High Speed Numerical Integrator will enable the development of an embedded 4D trajectory optimizer based on Optimal Control theory. The use of surrogate aircraft flight dynamics models implemented with Neural Networks will improve the state of the art of embedded aircraft 4D trajectory prediction and optimization. The optimization of the trajectories – that will be done through the mathematical minimization of emission, fuel consumption or noise cost functions - is one of the main fields of research of MTM. It is expected that these optimized trajectories will bring significant reductions in CO2 and NOx chemical emissions and noise. The project will cover the following main technical aspects: • A new avionics subsystem to provide optimal trajectories to the guidance systems • A ground service for airline operators to compute optimal business trajectories. The NEURAL project will be driven by the aeronautics engineering division of GTD together with the experts in optimal control and high speed numerical integration with neural networks of the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE), a world-wide reference center in its area. THE "CLEANSKY" JTI Clean Sky is a "Joint Technology Initiative" that will develop breakthrough technologies to reduce aviation’s environmental impact. Aviation is an essential element of today's global society, bringing people and cultures together and creating economic growth. The air transport industry is paying a lot of attention to growing public concern about the environmental issues of air pollution, noise and climate change. Although today air transport only produces 2 % of man-made CO2 emissions, this is expected to increase to 3 % by 2050. The CleanSky Initiative is one of the largest European research projects ever, with a budget estimated at €1.6 billion, equally shared between the European Commission and industry, over the period 2008 - 2013. This public-private partnership speeds up technological breakthrough developments and shortens the time to market for new solutions tested on Full Scale Demonstrators.
