A Systematic Analysis of Surface Trajectory Models

Trajectory planning aims to find the most efficient aircraft trajectory for given conditions. Most trajectory planning has focused on airborne trajectories but surface trajectory models are needed to improve the performance of advanced decision tools. This paper evaluates five different models for the components of aircraft dynamics, intents, and pilot tracking actions. The performance of different models is evaluated with numerical simulations. Little difference in performance is found in among the models in predicting time of arrival and fuel consumption. The more sophisticated models will produce more accurate predictions but will require greater computational time.