Real-time path planning for energy recovery management

In this paper, a concept of real-time planning of flight extension paths is presented. The technique is intended to assist the flight crew in managing the aircraft energy when excessive energy deviations are detected. The proposed mathematical problem uses B-Spline functions to ensure smooth and fly able extension paths. An optimizer is used to solve the resulting parametric optimization problem that yields values of control points defining the shape of the spline. Preliminary results show that the technique can provide consistent extension paths at a very low computation expense.