Artificial intelligence to increase air safety in the face of storms

Sometimes, during flights, aircrafts have to change their route (their flight plan) because of unforeseen events, such as storms. These meteorological phenomena, which may be accompanied by hail and lightning, are difficult to predict; they are known to appear in a wide area, but it is difficult to accurately predict when and where the storm focus will happen. START's objective is the development of research algorithms for optimising air transport networks in terms of their resilience (the system's recovery capacity) when facing this kind of disruptive phenomena. "The storms we are analysing in this project are convective, typically cumulonimbus (a type of cloud), which are very energetic and dangerous for an aircraft in flight, so pilots tend to systematically avoid them", explains the project's coordinator, Manuel Soler, from the UC3M's Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering. In addition to heavy rain, these storms often present hail, lightning, and thunder, and may eventually block airports or large airspace corridors.