This paper examines the implications of strategically scheduling flights on user-preferred routes in the Central East Pacific to reduce trajectory crossing points. After first casting the flight scheduling problem in terms of a job shop scheduling problem, a 0-1 integer programming model is used to calculate the optimal departure and en route controls required to generate feasible flight schedu...

Energy saving strategies such as formation flight and near-ground flight are frequently exploited in nature. The energy reduction mechanisms of these approaches are conceptually simple; however, the unsteady wake vortex structures that result from flapping may provide additional benefits. Since these flight strategies offer increased energy savings over simple flight situations, they have recei...

A methodology is presented for real-time control of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in the absence of apriori knowledge of location of sites in an inhospitable flight territory. Our proposed hostile control methodology generates a sequence of waypoints to be pursued on the way to the target. Waypoints are continually computed with new information about the nature of changing threat. The Dijkstra...

We study the dynamics of the relative motion of satellites in the gravitational field of the Earth, including the effects of the bulge of the Earth (the J2 effect). Using Routh reduction and dynamical systems ideas, a method is found that locates orbits such that the cluster of satellites remains close with very little dispersing, even with no controls. The use of controls in the context of thi...

Formation flight can result in large induced drag reductions. Optimum spanloads for a group of aircraft flying in an arrow formation were found using a discrete vortex method with a Trefftz plane analysis under constraints in lift, pitching moment and rolling moment coefficients. It has been shown that large reductions in induced drag can be obtained when the spanwise and vertical distances bet...