Rockwell Collins, Inc.

Other

Shih-Yih Young

Kristen M Jerome

Daniel L Woodell

James H Doty

Richard D Jinkins

Richard Marcel Rademaker

Patrick Y Hwang

Gary A McGraw

Keith L Kerley

James Alva Young, Jr

Guidance laws for generating a control command for controlling, directing, or maneuvering, a platform, or displaying a maneuver for the platform, to track a defined path upon detecting a deviation from the defined path relative to a non-linear desired path being traversed. The non-linear desired path may be a curved lateral ground path or a curved vertical ground path with a containment region forming a control boundary within which platform deviations from the defined path are contained. The guidance laws are enhanced to maintain a position of the platform within the containment region based on a threshold and a degree of accuracy associated with the threshold. Non-ideal conditions and circumstances, such as external forces, relatively low operating speeds, control delays, and discontinuities in the defined path are accounted for to reduce total system error (TSE), reduce lateral and vertical deviations, and increase precision and accuracy of platform control.

Enhanced guidance laws for precision operations

A flight management system device and method. The method includes determining a ground track for a flight leg based on a spherical earth model. The flight leg includes two waypoints that are specified with an ellipsoidal earth model. The method includes determining that a parameter associated with the ground track exceeds a threshold. The method includes inserting an anchor point between the two waypoints on a geodesic to effect a course change to the ground track between the two waypoints such that an intended flight path is within specified thresholds. The geodesic is associated with the ellipsoidal earth model. The method includes modifying the ground track to include two spherical earth model path segments spanning from the first waypoint through the anchor point to the second waypoint. The two spherical earth model path segments are computed based on the spherical earth model. The method includes storing modified ground track data.

Accurate determination of intended ground track with flight management system device and method

A on-aircraft computer device predicts aircraft states (e.g., altitude, speed, flight path angle, and fuel consumption) at any given time, while utilizing a Deterministic Genetic Algorithm to search 4-D flight path candidates that can comply with all path constraints to produce a feasible 4-D path candidate as a final OPD flight path to arrive at a metering waypoint in a specified time window.

In-flight generation of RTA-compliant optimal profile descent paths

A four dimensional time controlled flight management system (4DFMS) and related method generate an initial descent profile for an aircraft in flight. The initial descent profile is planned in compliance with a 1) a published arrival procedure at an airport, 2) a fuel-efficient optimized profile descent (OPD), and a required time of arrival (RTA) constraint at a metering waypoint on the published arrival. The 4DFMS maintains awareness of the changing wind conditions during cruise mode and descent mode of operation and triggers a replan of the descent profile should compliance fall outside of a 95% confidence level at a six second compliance requirement in the descent mode. The system continuously generates a total time error at the metering waypoint by projecting estimated time of arrivals at active waypoints to determine accurate altitude, airspeed, and time compliance at the metering waypoint.

Four dimensional flight management with time control system and related method

A method and related system may construct predictable 4-D flight profiles for fuel-efficient Optimized Profile Descents (OPD) in compliance with a Required Time of Arrival (RTA) constraint at a metering waypoint. The method may determine a feasible RTA window at the 95% confidence level enabling pilot awareness to accept or reject the RTA clearance. These methods may eliminate path unpredictability while retaining OPD benefits using constant flight path angle segments during descent. Thus, the vertical descent profile is clearly defined and, therefore, predictable to both pilots and air traffic control.

Predictable and required time of arrival compliant optimized profile descents with four dimensional flight management system and related method

A position determining voting system that uses Doppler information from an on-board weather radar to improve the system's accuracy and/or fault tolerance includes a comparison function and an error integration function. The comparison function is used to monitor the independent position sources for correct operation, comparing and identifying a position source that should not be used based on its relative error compared with the other position sources and their characteristics. The integration function provides corrections to relative position sources by integrating the data from multiple absolute position sources when they are mutually consistent.

Voting system and method using doppler aided navigation

A method and related system is disclosed for risk-aware contingency flight re-planning of a vehicle's pre-planned route. The system receives a desired Risk Tolerance Level (RTL) for the pre-planned route from a decision maker. As a mission time progresses, changing threats pose an unknown level of risk to the vehicle and crew. The system receives an unplanned threat to mission success of the vehicle and qualifies the received unplanned threat with a Risk Type (RT). The system generates and evaluates possible 4-D re-routes based on the RTL and RT coupled with physical attributes of the possible 4-D re-route. Additionally, the re-planner associates a cost to each of the possible 4-D re-routes and presents ranked possibilities to the decision maker for selection and activation.

Risk-aware contingency flight re-planner system and related method

The present invention is a method for providing rapid intervisibility determination in resource-constrained computational environments. The method may be applied to various real-time applications, such as real-time flight planning and ad-hoc network management. The method includes pre-processing terrain elevation data into an ELDETREE data structure, which uses a 3-D grid coordinate system for each zone inside a multi-zone planning area, for expediting intervisibility determination. Along with promoting increased intervisibility computation efficiency, the method further promotes reduced memory usage for intervisibility computation.

Rapid intervisibility determination in resource-constrained computational environments

A present novel and non-trivial system, module, and method for constructing a flight path used by an avionics system are disclosed. A processor receives flight plan data and object data associated with terrain and obstacles. Free cells are extracted above the objects using a recursive space decomposition technique, and a reference path is formed through traversable free space determined from the availability of free cells. In an additional embodiment, threat data associated with hostile military weaponry and significant meteorological conditions could affect the availability of free cells. A genetic algorithm applying genetic operators which include mutators is employed with aircraft kinematic constraints to refine the reference path used to form a population of best path candidates. When a best path is reached after cycling through a re-generation process of path candidates, flight path data representative of the best path is generated and provided to at least one avionics system.

System, module, and method of constructing a flight path used by an avionics system

A motion planner for unmanned ground vehicles capable of traversing at high speeds to reach remote locations in partially known environments. The motion planner comprises a global path planner and a local path planner in communication with the global path planner. The global path planner determines a path to reach a goal location. The local motion planner revises the path determined by the global path planner to generate a motion profile accounting for constraints on the maneuverability of the unmanned ground vehicle. The motion profile provides a revised path for being traversed by the unmanned ground vehicle to reach the goal location.

Motion planner for unmanned ground vehicles traversing at high speeds in partially known environments

A new Fault Detection and Exclusion (FDE) approach for tightly integrated GPS/inertial sensors that combines a normalized solution separation for fault detection and a residual monitoring scheme for fault exclusion is described. The computation of the detection threshold, the horizontal protection level and the horizontal uncertainty level are also presented. This new FDE algorithm is designed to enable the tightly integrated GPS/inertial sensor to be used as a primary means of navigation sensor for civil aviation.

Method and system for fault detection and exclusion for multi-sensor navigation systems

Deriving inertial-aided deviations for autoland systems during GPS signal interruptions involving an inertial reference system and a GPS landing system can include converting position coordinates of an aircraft from the inertial reference system to runway, lateral, and vertical coordinates. After this conversion, the method calibrates runway distance and lateral distance based on the converted position coordinates from the inertial reference system using runway distance and lateral distance from the GPS landing system with a third-order calibration filter when the aircraft is below a first height above terrain and calibrates vertical distance based on the converted position coordinates from the inertial reference system using vertical distance from the GPS landing system with a second-order calibration filter when the aircraft is below the first height above terrain. The method uses the calibrated runway, lateral, and vertical distances for deviation computations when GPS signals are interrupted below a second height above terrain.

Method of and system for deriving inertial-aided deviations for autoland systems during GPS signal interruptions

The present invention is a method of deriving a ground speed of an aircraft on a descent along a flight path. A vertical speed signal is produced as a function of an altitude signal and a vertical acceleration signal. The vertical speed signal is transformed to a nominal ground speed signal based upon a glide slope defined by a glide slope beam. A correction is produced based on a glide slope deviation rate representative of deviation of the aircraft from the glide slope. The nominal ground speed signal is corrected with the correction to produce a corrected ground speed signal. The corrected ground speed signal is filtered with a horizontal acceleration signal and a runway heading signal to produce a smoothed ground speed signal.

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Marion, IA, United States of America

Shih-Yih Young