Partnership for smarter flying

The University of Sydney and Qantas have entered into a four-year partnership to develop a flight planning system that will help the airline fly optimised routes, reduce fuel consumption and improve operational effectiveness.

The Qantas Future Flight Planning Project (QFFPP) follows closely on the tail of a successful pilot program that targeted the development and demonstration of a prototype commercial aviation flight-planning system.

Professor Salah Sukkarieh, Director of Research and Innovation for the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR), says the commencement of the QFFPP punctuated a decade of research in the area of flight planning and control, and multivehicle coordination and optimisation.

“Our initial work looked at how aerodynamics, flight mechanics, large-scale optimisation and machine learning algorithms can be used to design better flight planning routines and fuel prediction models,” said Professor Sukkarieh.

“We believe this will help pave the way for optimised flight routes that will improve operational efficiency for Qantas - complementing its existing focus on new navigation technology - and support greener commercial aviation.”

The agreement with the university will look at further developing the system, as well as conduct new research into operational factors such as weather avoidance and traffic flow. The project will support six research fellows and up to 10 PhD students.

Professor Sukkarieh says the system is the first of its kind in the world, offering Qantas a suite of algorithms that are custom-made to the company’s operation and that will support its future needs.

Qantas’s Head of Operations Support, Peter Broschofsky, said the partnership would help Qantas build on its strong record of innovation through technology deployment in flight operations.

“We are delighted to be working with the University of Sydney on a project that is at the cutting edge of aviation technology research,” Broschofsky said. “We expect the QFFPP will replace our current flight planning systems in around four years and, coupled with new aircraft and ground technology, bring about significant improvements in Qantas’ operational efficiency.

“More efficient flying is an operational priority for Qantas - it will help us improve our performance for our customers and reduce fuel burn and carbon emissions. The system being developed by Professor Sukkarieh is in keeping with Qantas’ long-standing commitment to smarter technologies such as required navigation performance, where we are an industry leader.” 

The prototype system was based on the latest research in stochastic optimisation and planning and implemented in software using data supplied by Qantas. The system combined all the relevant aerodynamic, route profile and aircraft performance into the optimisation algorithms that were based on dynamic programming principles, and was claimed to demonstrate greater accuracy and enhanced operational effectiveness.