Rockwell Collins, Inc.

Other

Bae Systems Controls Inc.

Bae Systems Aircraft Controls, Inc.

Carlo L Tiana

Weston James Lahr

Robert B Wood

Robert D Brown

Kenneth A Zimmerman

Sarah Barber

Eric P Stratton

Brandon E Wilson

Christopher Alan Keith

Robert W Wood

Geoffrey A Shapiro

Daniel Y Chiew

Alexander D Reid

Brian O Helfrecht

Jeffery A Finley

Travis S VanDerKamp

David I Han

Robert A Armstrong

Lu Bai

Nathaniel S Kowash

David L Flanders

Marvin R Lovato

Elisabeth Barnes

Yashaswi M Narasimha Murthy

Steven E Koenck

Patrick Dennis McCusker

James H Stanley

Eric N Anderson

Richard D Jinkins

Richard Marcel Rademaker

Felix B Turcios

Matthew J Carrico

Bobby D Foote

Ming Yu

Timothy R Fannin

Keith A Stover

Ian J Bull

Bradley R Thompson

Roger L Yum

Andrew Kevin Barrows

Gary J Albert

Chad Jennings

Luca Manica

Michael J Nielsen

Irina R Sandu

Michael J Oldham

Keith Alter

Amrit Chatterjee

Travis B Smith

Ricky M Kannothra

Prajitha Kunhiraman

Duane P Pond

Michael A Peterson

Gregg A Walt

A flight management system includes a communications system configured to receive weather data from a remote source, a display system configured to generate an output for a flight display of an aircraft, and at least one processor with a non-transitory processor-readable medium storing processor-executable code. The output includes weather information based on the received weather data. The processor-executable code causes the processor to receive a user input from a user interface element of the aircraft where the user input requests updated weather information. The processor-executable code causes the processor to retrieve, via the communications system and in response to the user input, updated weather data from the remote source; calculate a departure or arrival performance flight parameter based at least in part on the updated weather data; and provide, via the display system, an output for the flight display of the aircraft where the output includes the flight parameter.

Flight management system departure and arrival performance display based on weather data uplink

A system and method for performing a self-diagnostic test on an electronically scanned array is disclosed. The system includes an array of emitter antenna and receiver antenna elements, a controller configured to control the modulation of transmitting and received signals, and a monitoring processor configured to receive a signal quality input based on the transmitting and received signal, generate a control profile based on the signal quality input, compare at least one control profile to at least one of a predicted result signal or to control profiles from at least two other sets of control profiles, and determine a faulty set of individually addressable components that includes at least one faulty individually addressable component. The controller is configured to enhance one or more individually addressable components to compensate for the faulty addressable component.

Assurance monitoring of radar systems

A system including a radar system. The radar system may include a transmit antenna, a receive antenna, and a controller. The controller may be configured to: determine or obtain information indicative of at least one of a phase of flight or an environmental condition; determine or obtain information indicative of a mission associated with the determined phase of flight and/or environmental condition; and based at least on the determined mission and the determined phase of flight and/or the environmental condition, tune radar parameters of the radar system to values to fulfill the determined mission associated with the determined phase of flight and/or environmental condition. The radar system may be reprogrammable by tuning the radar parameters to operate over any of a collection of phases of flight, any of a collection of environmental conditions, and any of a collection of missions.

Reprogrammable radar system and method

A method for non-invasive operator health monitoring is disclosed. The method may include receiving at least one of one or more images or one or more videos of tracked one or more facial features of a pilot from one or more pilot monitoring devices. The one or more tracked facial features may include at least one of a pilot's eyes, mouth, head posture, forehead, or cheek. The method may include determining at least one of one or more eye tracking parameters, one or more mouth tracking parameters, one or more head tracking parameters, or an emotion of the pilot. The method may include determining a pilot health monitoring value based on at least one of the determined one or more eye tracking parameters, the determined one or more mouth tracking parameters, the one or more head tracking parameters, or the determined emotion of the pilot.

System and method for non-invasive operator health monitoring

An inertial head-tracking system includes light emitting diodes (LEDs) and photoreceptors. The LEDs and photoreceptors are positioned around the environment and helmet respectively. A processor periodically receives measurements from the photoreceptors and resets inertial drift based on those measurements. Either the LEDs or the photoreceptors are constrained to a specified range to allow for more accurate drift estimation.

Optical reference for inertial drift mitigation

An optical display system includes a first display, a plurality of electronic drivers, a controller, and a combiner. Light from a scene is combined with image light from the first display, and the combined light presented to an observer. The combiner includes an electrochromic layer comprising one or more electrochromic regions disposed between the scene and the combiner. The electronic drivers are arranged to electrically connect with and drive respective of the electrochromic regions. The controller is configured to control the plurality of electronic drivers to individually address each of the electrochromic regions to selectively drive some of the electrochromic regions to change light transmission of the selectively driven electrochromic regions.

Optical display system with regionally addressable electrochromic light modulator

A high-assurance headtracking system for a head worn display (HWD) incorporating ground-truth fiducials is disclosed. In embodiments, the headtracking system includes a camera fixed to a mobile platform (e.g., an aircraft cockpit) and oriented toward a pilot wearing the HWD. Images captured by the camera detect fiducial markers attached to the HWD (and fixed in a device reference frame) and static fiducial markers fixed to the mobile platform, each static fiducial marker including a constellation of individual markers having a known position and orientation in the platform reference frame. The headtracking system include control processors for analyzing the images and identifying therein the device-frame and static fiducial markers. The headtracking system determines a device pose of the HWD relative to the platform reference frame and monitors the device pose for drift or error based on the known positions of the identified static fiducial markers.

High assurance head tracking system incorporating ground truth fiducials

An imaging system for an aircraft is disclosed. A plurality of image sensors are attached, affixed, or secured to the aircraft. Each image sensor is configured to generate sensor-generated pixels based on an environment surrounding the aircraft. Each of the sensor-generated pixels is associated with respective pixel data including, position data, intensity data, time-of-acquisition data, sensor-type data, pointing angle data, latitude data, and longitude data. A controller generates a buffer image including synthetic-layer pixels, maps the sensor-generated pixels to the synthetic-layer pixels in the buffer image, fills a plurality of regions of the buffer image with the sensor-generated pixels, and presents the buffer image on a head-mounted display (HMD) to a user of the aircraft.

Synthetic georeferenced wide-field of view imaging system

An optical display system includes a first display, a plurality of electronic drivers, a controller, and a combiner. Light from a scene is combined with image light from the first display, and the combined light presented to an observer. The combiner includes an electrochromic layer comprising one or more electrochromic regions separated from each other. The electronic drivers are arranged to electrically connect with and drive respective of the electrochromic regions. The controller is configured to control the plurality of electronic drivers to individually address each of the electrochromic regions to selectively drive some of the electrochromic regions to change light transmission of the selectively driven electrochromic regions.

A system includes a vehicle cockpit and a processor. The vehicle cockpit includes imperceptible cockpit reference fiducials and a head wearable display (HWD) device. The imperceptible cockpit reference fiducials are imperceptible to a naked eye of a user in the vehicle cockpit. The HWD device includes a display and an optical sensor configured to: capture images of the imperceptible cockpit reference fiducials; and output optical sensor image data. The processor is configured to: receive the optical sensor image data; and based at least on the optical sensor image data, determine a position and orientation of the head wearable display device. The display is configured to display the images aligned with the field of view of the user based at least on the determined position and the determined orientation of the head wearable display device.

Vehicle including head wearable display device and imperceptible reference fiducials and method therefor

A system and method are disclosed for design of a suite of multispectral (MS) sensors and processing of enhanced data streams produced by the sensors for autonomous aircraft flight. The onboard suite of MS sensors is specifically configured to sense and use a MS variety of sensor-tuned objects, either strategically placed objects and/or surveyed and sensor significant existing objects to determine a position and verify position accuracy. The received MS sensor data enables an autonomous aircraft object identification and positioning system to correlate MS sensor data output with a-priori information stored onboard to determine and verify position and trajectory of the autonomous aircraft. Once position and trajectory are known, the object identification and positioning system commands the autonomous aircraft flight management system and autopilot control of the autonomous aircraft.

Autonomous aircraft sensor-based positioning and navigation system using markers

An integrity monitoring system for a first image sensor includes an electronic processor configured to receive sensor data for the provision of image data associated with an environment of the avionic sensor. The electronic processor is configured to monitor the avionic sensor for integrity. The electronic processor is configured to perform at least one of: determining a presence of an optical feature associated with optics of the first image sensor, comparing overlap information derived from the sensor data and other sensor data, comparing characteristics of a digital output stream of the sensor data to expected characteristics, or comparing a first motion derived from the image data and a second motion derived from avionic position equipment.

Integrity monitoring systems and methods for image sensors

A structured light assurance system for a head tracking system is disclosed. In embodiments, the structured lighting system includes structured light projectors mountable in an aircraft cockpit or other mobile platform, the projectors oriented toward a pilot or operator of the mobile platform for capturing three-dimensional (3D) imagery of the pilot (e.g., via offset imaging sensors) and determining from the captured 3D imagery a position and orientation (pose) of the pilot's head relative to the mobile platform and independent of the main headtracking system. The structured lighting system verifies the determined head pose (and may also self-calibrate) by identifying within the captured imagery static fiducial markers fixed to the cockpit in known locations. The structured lighting system forwards the determined head pose to the main headtracker for drift correction or initial head pose updating by the latter system.

High assurance headtracking via structured light projection for head worn display (HWD)

A system and method for augmenting synthetic vision system (SVS) databases with spectrum diverse features that are matched to the observations of natural scenes derived from non-visible band sensors. The system correlates sensor output with a-priori information in databases to enhance system precision and robustness. Multiple diverse sensors image naturally occurring, or artificial features (towers buildings etc.) and store the multi-spectral attributes of those features within the enhanced multi-spectral database and share the information with other systems. The system, upon 'live' observation of those features and attributes, correlates current observations with expected fiducial observations in the multi-spectral database and confirms operation, navigation, precise position, and sensor fidelity to enable autonomous operation of an aircraft employing the system.

Multispectrally enhanced synthetic vision database system and method

Growing community of inventors

Portland, OR, United States of America

Carlo L Tiana