Prototypical implementation of an agent based framework for modeling flight in formation of civil aircraft

Flight in formation (FiF) has been applied for decades in military context to improve the operational and strategic possibilities. The economic benefits have been discovered by observing migratory birds at the beginning of the 20th century. This phenomenon could be used in civil aviation to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and fuel consumption. Therefore, this article presents an agent-based simulation framework as a testing platform, in which the flight operation including FiF from take-off to landing can be illustrated and different formation shapes and their algorithms for building, holding, rotating and rearranging formations could be tested. To evaluate FiF and the implemented algorithms a basic fuel consumption model has been implemented.