Selecting altitude changing phase routes for aircraft

A machine trained to make fuel burn predictions for aircraft flight, comprising:

• an input engine configured to:
• receive sequences of multivariate flight data from at least one prior flight of an aircraft, the multivariate flight data discretized based on step profiles and an amount of fuel burn for altitude changing phases of each prior flight, each step profile comprising a plurality of steps, each step characterized by a step size indicating a duration where the aircraft remains level, and a threshold indicating a delta flight level between time steps;
• receive a set of candidate altitude changing phase routes, each candidate altitude changing phase route having a separate candidate step profile;
• and
• receive a set of flight parameters including at least a total altitude change for a planned altitude changing phase and a takeoff weight;
• a trained encoder arranged logically upstream of a trained decoder, wherein the encoder is trained to emit a vector that featurizes an input sequence of multivariate flight data, and wherein the decoder is trained to replicate fuel burn quantities of the input sequence based on the vector, thereby generating an output sequence;
• a prediction engine configured to, for each candidate altitude changing phase route, predict a sequence of fuel burn quantities for the respective candidate step profile based on at least the sequences of multivariate flight data, the set of flight parameters, and the output sequence;
• a summation engine configured to sum the fuel burn quantities over each candidate altitude changing phase route to obtain an estimated fuel burn;
• and
• an output engine configured to indicate a preferred candidate altitude changing phase route having a lowest estimated fuel burn.

A system for controlling an aircraft that is at least a partially autonomous aircraft, the system comprising:

• a controller comprising one or more logic machines and one or more storage machines, the one or more storage machines storing instructions that when executed, cause the controller to:
• receive sequences of multivariate flight data from at least one prior flight, the multivariate flight data discretized based on step profiles and an amount of fuel burn for altitude changing phases of each prior flight, each step profile comprising a plurality of steps, each step characterized by a step size indicating a duration where the aircraft remains level, and a threshold indicating a delta flight level between time steps;
• receive a set of flight parameters for the aircraft including at least a total altitude change for a planned altitude changing phase and a takeoff weight;
• receive a set of candidate altitude changing phase routes, each candidate altitude changing phase route having a separate candidate step profile;
• for each candidate altitude changing phase route,
• predict a sequence of fuel burn quantities for the respective candidate step profile based on at least the sequences of multivariate flight data and the set of flight parameters;
• and
• sum the fuel burn quantities over the candidate altitude changing phase route to obtain an estimated fuel burn;
• indicate a preferred candidate altitude changing phase route having a lowest estimated fuel burn;
• and
• control the aircraft to follow the preferred candidate altitude changing phase route.