The noise issue generated by approaching and departing aircraft attracts wild attention since it impacts both physical and emotional health of the residents living within the vicinities of civil airports. In this work, a technique is presented to minimize the noise nuisance by optimizing the trajectory of the aircraft for a single event. A level flight at constant speed is discussed although there can be as many as six scenarios within the terminal airspace. First, the trajectory is segmented in such a way that it is only consisted of a series of straight-line segments which are connected by fly-by waypoints. Then, state parameterization is applied for each straight-line segment to convert the original optimal control problem into a parameter optimization problem. Finally, the optimization problem with a finite number of parameters is solved using genetic algorithms. Importantly, all associated models should be built into replaceable modules so that the technique has great generality. The trajectory of a Boeing 747-400 aircraft approaching one of the runways at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in the Netherlands is optimized to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed technique. The results from a numerical simulation show that there are multiple local optima. Since genetic algorithms may converge at any one of them, optimization algorithms that guarantee finding the unique global optimum need to be developed.
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