Reduced-Order Modeling Applied to the Aviation Environmental Design Tool for Rapid Noise Prediction

Abstract

The aviation environmental design tool (AEDT) is simulation software for estimating the environmental ramifications of aircraft. Because the AEDT would be repeatedly used for applications such as airport noise assessment, a computational cost may arise as a concern for aviation environmental research. To expedite noise evaluation using the AEDT, this research devised a rapid approximation of the AEDT via reduced-order modeling (ROM) because the technique is effective in approximating large-dimensional data. In particular, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and ordinary Kriging were leveraged for orthonormal basis extraction and basis coefficient prediction, respectively. For demonstration, a reduced-order AEDT model was developed by associating two AEDT outputs—departure and approach noise—with five atmospheric parameters—elevation, temperature, pressure, relative humidity, and headwind—for single departure and arrival flights using straight tracks. With the help of POD, the reduced-order AEDT noise model was formed based on the first three leading basis vectors, and the three corresponding basis coefficients were estimated by separate Kriging models according to atmospheric variation. After the model construction, the reduced-order AEDT noise model was verified using the training and testing data sets and exhibited reliable approximation capability. Overall, the employed POD-based ROM with Kriging was able to tremendously accelerate the AEDT noise simulation, thus encouraging the use of the AEDT for aviation environmental impact studies, particularly those involving many airports operating a multitude of flights.