Low Tropospheric Wind Forecasts in Aviation: The Potential of Deep Learning for Terminal Aerodrome Forecast Bulletins

Abstract

In aviation, accurate wind prediction is crucial, especially during takeoff and landing at complex sites like Gran Canaria Airport. This study evaluated five Deep Learning models: Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Vanilla Recurrent Neural Network (vRNN), One-Dimensional Convolutional Neural Network (1dCNN), Convolutional Neural Network Long Short-Term Memory (CNN-LSTM), and Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) for forecasting wind speed and direction. The LSTM model demonstrated the highest precision, particularly for extended forecasting periods, achieving a mean absolute error (MAE) of 1.23 m/s and a circular MAE (cMAE) of 15.80° for wind speed and direction, respectively, aligning with World Meteorological Organization standards for Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts (TAF). While the GRU and CNN-LSTM also showed promising results, and the 1dCNN excelled in wind direction forecasting over shorter intervals, the vRNN lagged in performance. Additionally, the autoregressive integrated moving average model underperformed relative to the DL models, underscoring the potential of DL, particularly LSTM, in enhancing TAF accuracy at airports with intricate wind patterns. This study not only confirms the superiority of DL over traditional methods but also highlights the promise of integrating artificial intelligence into TAF automation.