Forecasting Optimal Time-of-Arrival for Carrier Landings Using Prior Ship Motion

Sea-based aviation operations, such as carrier launch / recovery of aircraft, can be limited or interrupted by ship motion. Such operations may benefit from real time ship-motion forecasting, particularly in sea states above SS6, as unanticipated large motions may suddenly occur. Ship motion forecasting was optimized using an autoregressive moving average vector (ARMAV) model. The forecasting was accurate for approximately 25 seconds with accuracy evaluated using either correlation coefficient or root mean square error metrics. The ship motion data evaluated was simulation data generated by a ship motion prediction program for a generic CVN hull.