Optimal recovery from microburst wind shear

Abstract

The flight path of a twin-jet transport aircraft is optimized in a microburst encounter during approach to landing. The objective is to execute an escape maneuver that maintains safe ground clearance and an adequate stall margin during the climb-out portion of the trajectory. A cost function penalizing rate of climb deviations from a nominal value and rate of elevator deflection produces qualitatively good results in a variety of microburst encounters. The optimal maneuver is a gradual pitch-up that ceases near the core of the microburst, followed by a slight reduction in pitch attitude in the tailwind area of the microburst. A minimum airspeed constraint in the optimization prevents excessive airspeed loss in very severe microbursts. The aircraft equations of motion include short-period dynamics, so that the optimization solves directly for the control surface deflections required to achieve the optimal flight paths.

Authors

• Mulgund, Sandeep S. NASA Headquarters
• Stengel, Robert F. Princeton University