Adaptive improvement of aircraft climb performance for air traffic control applications

The intent of the current work is to investigate use of adaptive methods to improve climb performance predictions for aircraft in the ascending phase of their flight. The technical approach taken in this paper is to start with initial a priori models of aerodynamics and thrust, and to adapt the thrust dependency based on the observed and calculated energy rates of the vehicle. The results indicate that this adaptive model can improve climb performance predictions greatly, thus facilitating the integration of the ascending aircraft into an en route stream of traffic.