The Boeing Company

Francisco A Navarro Félix

Carlos Querejeta Masaveu

Ernesto Valls Hernández

Jesús Cuadrado Sánchez

David Sánchez Tamargo

Carlos Querejeta

Miguel Angel Vilaplana Ruiz

Eduardo Gallo

Javier López Leonés

Methods and systems for autonomous generation of shortest lateral paths for unmanned aerial systems are described. An example system includes memory storing code and at least one processor to execute the code to cause the at least one processor to access an initial scenario including a source point, a target point, and a no flight zone, determine a computation time for identifying a lateral path for an aircraft to traverse that avoids the no flight zone, determine whether the determined computation time satisfies a threshold of a reference computation time, change the first number of vertices to a second number of vertices when the reference computation time is not satisfied, determine a buffer area surrounding the no flight zone, construct a visibility graph including lateral paths, and identify one of the lateral paths as being shorter than others of the lateral paths.

Methods and systems for autonomous generation of shortest lateral paths for unmanned aerial systems

Methods and systems for autonomous generation of shortest lateral paths for unmanned aerial systems are described. An example method includes defining an area between a source point and a target point; identifying a first no flight zone within the area; identifying a second no flight zone outside of the area; estimating a first computation time to determine a first lateral path between the source point and the target point, the estimating to consider the first no flight zone, the estimating not to consider the second no flight zone; comparing the first computation time to a reference computation time; in response to the first computation time not satisfying a threshold of the reference computation time, modifying the first no flight zone to be a third no flight zone; and estimating a second computation time to determine a second lateral path between the source point and the target point, the estimating to consider the third no flight zone.

The present invention provides a computer-implemented method of producing a description of aircraft intent expressed using a formal language. The description may be used to predict aircraft trajectory, for example by air traffic management. Rules are used in association with information provided to generate a set of instructions describing both the aerodynamic configuration of the aircraft and the motion of the aircraft. These instructions are checked to ensure that they describe unambiguously the aircraft's trajectory. The instructions are then expressed using a formal language.

Predicting aircraft trajectory

Growing community of inventors

Madrid, Spain

Francisco A Navarro Félix