Situational awareness, vehicle control, and/or contingency planning for aircraft actuator failure
AssigneeSkyryse, Inc.
InventorsMark Groden, Mitch Adler, Jonathan Reeves, Nur Harell, Christopher Ward
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method, preferably including: sampling inputs, determining aircraft conditions, and/or acting based on the aircraft conditions. A method, preferably including: sampling inputs, determining input reliability, determining guidance, and/or controlling aircraft operation. A method, preferably including: operating the vehicle, planning for contingencies, detecting undesired flight conditions, and/or reacting to undesired flight conditions. A system, preferably an aircraft such as a rotorcraft, configured to implement the method.
Claims15
A method of aircraft operation, the method comprising:
- autonomously flying an aircraft in a first flight mode;
- while autonomously flying the aircraft in the first flight mode:
- sampling a first dataset at a first sensor, the first dataset indicative of a condition associated with a flight control element of the aircraft, wherein the flight control element is a flight control surface and the condition comprises an actuation failure of the flight control surface that causes a directional bias during flight of the aircraft;
- and
- sampling a second dataset at a second sensor different than the first sensor, the second dataset indicative of the actuation failure of the flight control surface;
- based on the first and second datasets, determining a presence of the actuation failure of the flight control surface;
- and
- in response to determining the presence of the actuation failure of the flight control surface, flying the aircraft in a modified mode, wherein flying the aircraft in the modified mode comprises:
- sampling a set of flight data;
- determining the directional bias caused by the actuation failure;
- determining a modified flight plan based on the determined directional bias caused by the actuation failure;
- and
- autonomously controlling the aircraft to fly based on the modified flight plan and the set of flight data.
A non-transitory computer readable medium configured to store program code instructions, when executed by a set of one or more processors, cause the set of one or more processors to perform steps comprising:
- autonomously flying an aircraft in a first flight mode;
- while autonomously flying the aircraft in the first flight mode:
- sampling a first dataset at a first sensor, the first dataset indicative of a condition associated with a flight control element of the aircraft, wherein the flight control element is a flight control surface and the condition comprises an actuation failure of the flight control surface that causes a directional bias during flight of the aircraft;
- and
- sampling a second dataset at a second sensor different than the first sensor, the second dataset indicative of the actuation failure of the flight control surface;
- based on the first and second datasets, determining a presence of the actuation failure of the flight control surface;
- and
- in response to determining the presence of the actuation failure of the flight control surface, flying the aircraft in a modified mode, wherein flying the aircraft in the modified mode comprises:
- sampling a set of flight data;
- determining the directional bias caused by the actuation failure;
- determining a modified flight plan based on the determined directional bias caused by the actuation failure;
- and
- autonomously controlling the aircraft to fly based on the modified flight plan and the set of flight data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.