AirOpt - optimisation of airspace to save 2MT CO2 a year

Airspace Unlimited旨在创新军用和民用用户之间共享空域的方式。这越来越多地通过“灵活使用空域”的概念来管理。灵活性越高，我们就越能减少燃料消耗和温室气体排放。我们的目标是通过每天对多个飞行轨迹和多个军用空域预订进行“大数据”优化，减少航空温室气体排放。这将使航空公司能够每天优化其航线，每年可能在欧洲节省200万吨二氧化碳。我们已经开发了一个工具来实现这一点，“Airopt”，这是由DfT T-TRIG赠款资助的，并一直与斯特林大学合作，以提高计算效率。在世界上大部分地区，民用和军用用户共享空域。航空公司通常在相距数百英里的机场之间飞行，而军方在靠近军用机场的主要固定空域进行训练演习。对于民用用户来说，出于安全原因，军用空域是必须避免的。近年来，民用和军事当局越来越多地合作，根据“空域灵活使用”（FUA）原则优化空域的使用，该原则被定义为战略，战术前和战术。战术指的是行动当天，战术前最多三天，而战略则不止于此。军用空域的使用通常是在战术前一级确定的，这样航空公司就可以在了解哪些空域可用的情况下进行飞行计划。支持这一系统的程序目前正在现代化，采用了数字化工具和电子通信。这种现代化为引入数据分析提供了机会，并在燃油消耗方面获得了微小但显著的改善。Eurocontrol（2019年9月）估计，空中交通管理可以影响欧洲约6%的航空排放，并且正在进行改进：“自由航线空域”，在5年内（2014-19）节省了260万吨二氧化碳;以及“持续爬升和下降”操作，估计每年可节省110万吨二氧化碳。保守地说，我们的概念有前景可以减少1%的航空燃油消耗，相当于整个欧洲每年200万吨的二氧化碳。这些收益不仅本身增加了价值，而且还起到了减碳的乘数作用。这是因为与碳捕集（每吨CO2约24欧元）和合成航空燃料（每吨CO2约120欧元）的成本相比，运营改进的成本非常低。可持续航空燃料在2050年之前无法解决这个问题，因此在未来30-50年内，短期运营改进至关重要。2019年，我们将这项工作商业化，并将我们的知识产权授予'Airspace Unlimited Scotland' Ltd。自2018年在DFT T-TRIG项目下开始开发以来，我们一直以隐形模式运行。我们即将提交专利申请。

Airspace Unlimited has been established to innovate in how airspace is shared between military and civil users. Increasingly this is managed through a concept of the 'flexible use of airspace'. The more flexibility that can be achieved, the more we can reduce fuel burn and greenhouse gas emissions.Our aim is to reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions through a daily 'big data' optimisation of multiple flight trajectories and multiple military airspace reservations. This will enable airlines to optimise their routes on a daily basis, potentially saving 2Mt of CO2 a year in Europe. We have already developed a tool to do this, 'AirOpt', which was funded by a DfT T-TRIG grant, and have been working with the University of Stirling to improve the computational efficiency.Throughout most of the world airspace is shared between civil and military users. Airlines fly between airports typically several hundred miles apart, whereas the military conduct training exercises in predominantly fixed airspace volumes that are close to military airfields. For civil users, the military airspace is something that must be avoided, for obvious safety reasons.In recent years, civil and military authorities have increasingly worked together to optimise the use of the airspace, under the principles of the 'Flexible Use of Airspace' (FUA), which is defined as strategic, pre-tactical and tactical. Tactical denotes the day of operation, pre-tactical up to three days before while strategic is anything more than that. Military airspace use is generally determined at the pre-tactical level so that airlines can subsequently flight-plan with knowledge of what airspace is available. The processes that support this system are currently being modernised, with the adoption of digital tools and electronic communication. This modernisation presents an opportunity to introduce data analytics and gain small but significant improvements in fuel consumption.Eurocontrol (Sep 2019) estimates that air traffic management can influence ~6% of aviation emissions in Europe and improvements are underway: 'Free route airspace', which has saved 2.6Mt CO2 over 5 years (2014-19); and 'Continuous climb and descent' operations, estimated to save 1.1Mt CO2 per year. Conservatively, our concept has the prospect to reduce aviation fuel burn by 1%, equivalent to 2Mt CO2 per year across Europe.Not only do these gains add value in their own right, they act as multipliers for decarbonisation. This is because operational improvements are very low cost compared to the costs of carbon capture (~€24 per tCO2) and Synthetic Aviation Fuels (~€120 per tCO2). Sustainable aviation fuels will not solve the problem before 2050, therefore near term operational improvements are essential over the next 30-50 years.In 2019 we commercialised the work and vested our IP in 'Airspace Unlimited Scotland' Ltd. With this 'static' model we are now embedded in two projects in the Middle East and have three commercial proposals in our pipeline. We have been operating in stealth mode since our developments began in 2018 under a DFT T-TRIG project. We are about to submit a patent application.