Project Objectives: During this project, students will get not only the valuable practical experience to use computer programming language to design and develop a path planning algorithm for an aircraft operation from scratch but also practical skills of using online collaborating programming platform to work with group members remotely.
• Path planning (also known as the navigation problem) is computational problem to find a sequence of valid configurations that moves the object from the source to destination. The term is used in aviation, robotics and computer games.
• Private pilots do the path plan before the flight to make sure the navigation aid is available
• For ATC near airports, collaborative path planning is required to make the best use of the crowded airspace
•Commercial pilot follow the path that plan based on different cost index designed by airlines.
• python
• Github
•VS Code
• Goal of this project, to select the best aircraft models with an optimized route that minimized the cost of the aircraft operation under given scenario.
• Design the cost of the aircraft operation
• Design an aircraft model (virtually) with different cost coefficients to fly safe and cheapest.
• Design the path planning algorithm considering 3D, 2D + time, scenarios.
Task1: In this task, it is needed to find the PolyU aircraft models that achieve the minimum cost for the challenge assigned to your group.
a.Methodology
First of all,we obtained the source code from the lecturer.After receiving te code, we follow the image of the task 1 to change the bourdaries of the map.Also, we have changed the time-consuming area and the fuel-consuming area by inputing the cordination and we input the formulae into the code which can let the code to help us to calculate the minimun cost. Then, we only need to input the data of different aircraft models and it will run the program.At the same time, it will help us to calculate the minimun cost by using the two given formulae.
b.Results
The results of the minimun cost of different aircraft models:
The path plan is as shown below:
c.Discussion
The result above shows that the aircrft model of PolyU-A380 has the lowest cost in our path plan.After studying the formulae and the result,we have found that if the trip fuel or the time related cost per minute of flight increase,the total cost also increase.The trip fuel or the time related cost per minute of flight are positive proportional to the total cost.
Task2:
Task2.1
a.Methodology
c.Discussion
We find that to minimize the cost of paths for Cf and CT would have to be 20 each. This shows that if we changed two variables, the difference of cost can be significant. However, in reality, it is much more complicated. There will not be only two unknowns. There will be more formulas that affect each other. There will not be nice integer for the most efficient setup.
Task2.2
a.Methodology
By the Excel’s solver, we get:
c.Discussion
Even though we use the Excel find the lowest possible setup we can find, we are not sure about our answer. Since this setup or those formulas are for all 10 groups. In other words, we did not customize our setup for our route. Every route has its own setup, and it is not the same to others. We expect there will be more efficient setup than we have now. However, we tried and cannot be found. We are still struggling. We did not where is the problem. Therefore, we still stick our answer.
No matter what the answer is. This task is much closer to the reality. It is much complicated and vague. The actual answer is harder to be find. Also, we can see the importance of calculator and programming. As we use manual calculation, we would waste lots of time and may found incorrect answer. Computer can finish the work instinctly.
Task3:
a.Methodology
b.Results
Comparing to Task 1 of A380, it is reduced from 2373.092 to 1922.014. It is 19% cheaper.
c.Discussion
From the results, we can see that why airlines tries to find the lowest cost route. As adding one factor, the cost reduces almost 20%. However, in real life situation, there is so much more factors to be considers. For instance, weather, air traffic and altitude. Just to name a few. Finding the lowest or the most efficient cost setup for an airplane is much complicated. At least, it is not simple as task 3. Works are much work to be done in real life.
AAE Chan Ho Man (21079126D)
Before approaching this project,i did not know any about programming.I think that programming is very difficult to learn or understand.However,the task in this project are not difficult and there is assistance who can answer our quesions and help us to solve the difficulties.After the collaboration with the group mates, we can finish all the task .
After finishing the project, i can learn more about programming.We can set a simple code and the code can help us to solve a lot of problems and help us to calculate different difficult formula.Also,i can learn that we can use VScode to crate some code and push it to the github.After pushing the code to github, the group mate can also check the code and change the code.It can help us to finish the task quickly.Because we do not need to change and create the code by face-to-face and we can do it by online or github.
Apart form programming,i also learn more about path planning.At the begining,i think path planing is that we only make a route for the aircraft but it is not correct.There are lots of things to be considered.For example,we need to consider the cost of fuel and how many fuel will be consumed.We need to fine a route that less fuel is consumed and the aircraft can use less time to arrived the destination.
Last but not least,i can meet new friends in this project.This project needs us to collaborate with each other and finish the task.During the collaboration,we can know moreabout the group mates and enhance the relationship between each others.This is the biggest rewards after finishing the project.
AAE Chan Ching Long (21110937D)
When I acknowledge the content of the tutorial, I thought I was going to have tough time. Since I did not know anything about programming. Also, all my group mates did not learn programming as well. I cannot imagine how to face this project. Luckily, the difficulty of this course is not that hard. It is like introduction course. I think I can still catch up. I even learn from online and ask for assistance, our progress is still far behind comparing to other groups. We still have to overcome this challenge because all of the advanced airplanes involve of using programming. I have to learn this for my future career.
The first thing that I know is the simple programming/python. Although we did not dig deep, like, how code works, what is algorithm, what is path planning and more. I start to know what programming is. I can type some simple codes and functions although I cannot type complicated and massive functions. I also learn how can I pull, commit and push in Github. I definitely have some great practical experience.
Another thing that I learn how can I solve questions by using Excel. In task 2.2, there is a task that contain 4 constraints with 6 unknown variables. There is like thousands of possible setups and manual calculation will be very slow and inaccurate. Then, I learn how to use Excel’s solver from the internet. I just insert all of formulas and constraints. It quickly solves this task. It just takes me like 10 minutes to find the answer. I think I learn a great skill for this kind of problems.
The last thing that I learn is how to communicate with new group mate. Since this is not secondary, I did not know my group mates. Also, two of my group mates comes from mainland. There definitely has language barrier. I remember that there is one lessons that makes me so confuse. Since lessons has to be English, so I have to switch from 3 language. Cantonese, Chinese, and English. Sometimes I lost track and speak the wrong language to group mates. Comparing to my previous projects, communication is quite difficult. Luckily, everyone is willing to speak and not shy at all. Everyone will encourage to each other. Although there is some rough moment at the start, it is quite smooth in the end.
AAE Yang Zi Xi (21107424D)
Python is a very promising high-level language that has played an increasing role in programming over the years. In this semester, I have gained a certain understanding of Python by learning basic knowledge in elective Courses of Python. Python also offers programmers a huge advantage over C in handling strings. Python is not only that, it has a lot of libraries, and because of its powerful libraries, it makes programming easy. Start making contact, confused about themselves, and most important is his own master learned English is too little, even the most basic command of building warehouse, upload command all look not to understand, good to me, then I through translation and surf the Internet to check bit by bit, finally gave familiar with some commonly used commands, then ask other students, With their help, I finally finished my first assignment, but I also learned a lot from it. Github is a very practical and huge resource platform, so I will contact more in the future. With the advent of Visual Studio Code, the era of rapid rise of new text editors is over. VS Code is at an all-time high in popularity and sophistication, and will probably dominate the text editor market for the next decade. If you consider the age of your software a priority when choosing a tool like I do, learning VS Code can be a good investment.
In the early stages, path planning can only be done by hand manually to help ensure the safe operation of an aircraft during a route flight. Performing calculations by hand, especially when solving through multiple sets of constraints and lines continuous equations could be troublesome, and humans wouldn’t otherwise be able to catch up with the rapidly changing environmental conditions, making the process highly complicated and time consuming. In modern days as technology advanced exponentially, the need of manual path planning is greatly reduced where computer flight planning Is being adopted into our daily lives whereas the usage does not only get restricted to flight planning, but robotics or even computer games!
This project has also taught me a lot about working with a group. Initially, I thought working with a group online would be too difficult. With the lack of face-to-face interaction with my groupmates and instructors, I feared that I wouldn’t be able to do much for the group. I was able to contribute a lot, however, and help my groupmates in these tasks. I hope to be better at collaborating with other people after this experience and learn to work with others more efficiently. In addition, in the process of learning, the most important thing is to be patient, calm, to learn things, do not be impetuous, so what is not good, to learn seriously, study hard in the future
AAE Li Zhehang (21106296D)
In this ENG course, I gained a lot. First of all, I learned about the basic application of Github and Python, the practical application of digital technology in the field of aviation engineering, and understood the importance of cross-field cooperation in the digital era. Detailed said, python is an easy to learn, simple programming language, grammar is very suitable for non-professional, learn from the programming and application to his specialty, so as to realize interdisciplinary cooperation and making is a very convenient team site, share and edit code make team work more simple and effective, It saves a lot of manpower and material costs. Combining the two, it can help the informatization development in the field of aviation engineering. Secondly, ENG is a team cooperation course. In the last two months, THIS course made me deeply realize the importance of team cooperation. The biggest advantage of team cooperation is that we can divide the work and cooperate, so as to give full play to the advantages of everyone, thus improving the efficiency and quality of the task.
AAE Kwok Yan Yiu (21084939D)
To start with, I would like to say that this project is quite challenging for me. As I didn't study python before I enter the university, it is difficult for me to type the code with my own knowledge. Therefore, I will say that the thing I learn the most is about python. When I got difficulties about how to type the code, I would ask my groupmates foe help. If my groupmates got no ideas, we would ask the professor. Throughout this project, I started from zero and now, I can finish the project with my groupmates. That is really satisfy. Second, another problem I think is quite common in most of the groups is about the communication. We cooperate with students who came from other countries, such as Korea, France, Pakistan, so on and so forth. Luckily, we only got two groupmates from the Mainland and three are from Hong Kong. It was not a big difficulty for us to communicate. As this project cannot be finished by one person, we need to divide the part of what we need to do. This enhance our cooperate skills. To sum up, this project gave us a chance to learn how to collaborate with the people we have never met before. This may increase our competitiveness later on in the society.