Probabilistic Planning and Risk Evaluation Based on Ensemble Weather Forecasting

Weather analysis and support plays an important role in mission planning and risk evaluation of aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles. The impact of adverse weather on the aviation industry has been well documented. Although long-term efforts have made tremendous progress in this area, the current weather support tools rely on deterministic weather analysis that cannot meet the increasing requirements. A more flexible, accurate, and reliable probabilistic analysis is desirable for probabilistic aviation decision aid. To achieve this goal, this paper proposes an ensemble forecasting-based framework in which the probabilistic analysis of adverse weather, 3-D receding horizon field D* mission planning, and mission risk evaluation are integrated for a robust and flexible decision aid. The innovations of the proposed system include advanced multiple parameter probabilistic data analysis for probabilities of adverse weather and its confidence analysis, planning, and risk evaluation. Real ensemble weather forecasting data are used to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.