System for calculating a mission of an aircraft by combination of algorithms and related method

A method for generating a mission of an aircraft, including:

• querying a weather database containing current and predictive weather information in a navigation zone of the aircraft in a mission volume extending between the point of origin and the destination point, to determine the weather context, the current and the predictive weather information including speeds and directions of the wind in the mission volume extending between the point of origin and the destination point, at several flight levels;
• generating a first optimal mission path between a geographical point of origin and a geographical destination point as a function of airplane performance, operational mission specifications and the weather context, in a mission space between the geographical point of origin and the geographical destination point, the generating of the first optimal mission path being done in a manner non constrained by any network of waypoints and/or paths imposed between the waypoints, the optimal mission path being generating as if the aircraft was able to perform a free flight taking into account mission's specifications, aircraft performance and weather context, without taking into account any network of waypoints and/or imposed paths between the waypoints;
• defining an optimization region of the first optimal mission path around the first optimal mission path, the optimization region of the aircraft path being defined as a function of a predetermined lateral distance from each point of the optimal mission path and as a function of the operational mission specifications;
• generating an optimized path of the aircraft in the optimization region in a manner constrained by a defined network of waypoints and/or paths imposed between the defined network of waypoints, taking the weather context into account,
• the generating of the optimized path including defining, in the optimization region of the optimal mission path, a network of nodes between the geographical point of origin and the geographical destination point from the defined network of waypoints and/or paths imposed between the defined network of waypoints,
• the generating of the optimized path including querying a navigation information database to load the coordinates of the defined network of waypoints and/or paths imposed between the defined network of waypoints from the navigation information database, within the optimization region, as defined by air traffic authorities in each country;
• and
• generating a data file including the generated optimized path of the aircraft in the optimization region for input into a flight management system of the aircraft for aiding the pilot in navigating the aircraft during the mission,
• and guiding the aircraft to cause the aircraft to follow the generated optimized path.

A system comprising:

• a flight management system configured to aid a pilot of an aircraft in navigating the aircraft during a mission;
• and
• an aircraft mission generation system configured to generate an aircraft path during the mission, the aircraft mission generation system comprising a memory and a processor, the memory containing software configured for being executed by the processor to:
• query a weather database containing current and predictive weather information in a navigation zone of the aircraft in a mission volume extending between a geographical point of origin and a geographical destination point of the mission, to determine the weather context, the current and the predictive weather information including the speeds and directions of the wind in the mission volume extending between the point of origin and the destination point, at several flight levels:
• generate an optimal mission path between a geographical point of origin and a geographical destination point as a function of airplane performance, operational mission specifications and the weather context, in a mission space between the geographical point of origin and the geographical destination point, the optimal mission path being generated in a manner non-constrained by any network of waypoints and/or paths imposed between the waypoints, the aircraft mission generation system being configured to define, around the optimal mission path, an optimization region of the optimal mission path;
• generate an optimized path of the aircraft in the optimization region in a manner constrained by a defined network of waypoints and/or paths imposed between the defined network of waypoints, taking the weather context into account,
• the generating of the optimized path including defining, in the optimization region of the optimal mission path, a network of nodes between the geographical point of origin and the geographical destination point from the defined network of waypoints and/or paths imposed between the defined network of waypoints,
• the generating of the optimized path including querying a navigation information database to load the coordinates of the defined network of waypoints and paths imposed between the defined network of waypoints from the database, within the optimization region, as defined by air traffic authorities in each country;
• and
• generate a data file including the generated optimized path of the aircraft in the optimization region for input into the flight management system for aiding the pilot in navigating the aircraft during the mission,
• and guiding the aircraft to cause the aircraft to follow the generated optimized path,
• wherein the optimization region of the aircraft path is defined as a function of a predetermined lateral distance from each point of the optimal mission path and as a function of the operational mission specifications,
• wherein the optimization region of the optimal mission path is delimited by lateral limits extending laterally at a distance chosen as a function of a density of the defined network of waypoints and the paths imposed between the defined network of waypoints.