Smiths Industries Public Limited Company

Roger S Fitzpatrick

Keith C Rawlings

A dual lane computing system has at least one processor in each lane, each processor having an associated store which stores input data supplied to the processor and their time of arrival. The lanes produce nominally-identical outputs which are supplied to a comparator that detects when there is a discrepancy between the lanes. When a discrepancy is detected, an external processor is loaded with software that simulates the operation of the lanes. The data in the store associated with one of the lane processors is supplied to the simulator processor in respect of the input just prior to the detection of the discrepancy. The simulator simulates the operation of one lane utilizing this data and its output is compared in the comparator with the actual output of that lane as recorded when the discrepancy occurred.

Two lane computing systems

An aircraft navigation system has a digital map store of terrain features or man-made features in the region over which the aircraft is flying. Infra-red television cameras view the surrounding of the aircraft. Their outputs are supplied to processors in which the camera outputs are compared with a library of features transformed according to the camera viewing angle. Information about those features identified is supplied to a correlator which correlates the features against the map store to identify their location in the map and estimates the aircraft position as an output to a navigation computer. The system also indicates aircraft attitude which may be independent of known-features, from observation of the horizon. Position information can also be provided by dead reckoning from a known initial position by monitoring the change in positional relationship of a feature from the initial position to that at a later position.

Navigation systems

A helmet for aircrew in a highly manueverable aircraft has six air bags which are inflated or deflated by a control system so as to counteract acceleration forces on the wearer's head and helmet. Two pairs of air bags engage the wearer's body, and two bags engage the seat headrest so that restoring forces in yaw, pitch and lateral directions can be applied. A position sensor determines the actual position of the helmet which is compared with the predicted position, as derived from an inertial sensor or inputs from the aircraft flight control system, the difference between these two positions being used to control operation of the air bags. A memory module programmed with information about the behavior of the wearer's head and helmet characterizes the control system to the particular wearer and is removable for use in other systems.

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Cheltenham, United Kingdom

Roger S Fitzpatrick