Wind-aware Trajectory Optimization for Unmanned Aircraft Reveals Uncertainty-dependent Travel-time Benefits
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Atmospheric winds influence unmanned aircraft flight duration, and distanceminimizing routes may not provide minimum travel times when wind conditions vary across geographic locations and time.This study developed and evaluated a timedependent, wind-aware trajectory optimization framework using historical NASA Global Hawk flight measurements from the Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment (ATTREX) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts atmospheric reanalysis version 5 (ERA5).Aircraft-measured winds were compared with reanalysis estimates across five flight segments to characterize meteorological uncertainty.A graph-based routing algorithm then compared distance-minimizing and minimum-time trajectories under fixed-pressure and fixed-true-airspeed assumptions.Numerical verification assessed route-representation consistency, integration convergence, and search validity.Additional simulations examined trajectory performance under perturbed atmospheric conditions, including separate wind realizations for route optimization and evaluation.
Author: Christopher Jenks
Institution: University of Oklahoma
Language: English
Subfield: Aerospace Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7225729183
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