A Concurrent Aircraft Design and Fleet Assignment Approach to Mitigate Environmental Impact through Fuel Burn Reduction under Operational Uncertainty

Abstract

The growing concern over environmental impacts of air transportation has broadened the focus of the aviation industry so that aircraft design now considers environmental impact along with economic and performance considerations. While technological advances can reduce the environmental impact of individual aircraft, the environmental impact of aviation is best measured at a fleet level, rather than at an individual aircraft level. Using a problem motivated by reported operations of the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command for illustration, this paper presents a quantitative approach that identifies the optimal design requirements and optimal aircraft sizing variables of new, yet-to-be-introduced aircraft. With this new aircraft serving alongside other existing aircraft, the fleet of aircraft satisfy the desired demand for cargo transportation, while maximizing fleet productivity and minimizing fuel consumption (which directly relates to CO₂ emissions) via a multi-objective problem formulation. The approach accounts for uncertainty in demanded trips in the service network, and uses a descriptive sampling approach to reduce computational expense. Following the presentation of the results obtained, a summary discussion indicates how decision-makers might use these results to set requirements for new aircraft that meet operational needs while balancing the fuel consumption of the fleet with fleet-level performance.