Termination map for an aircraft
AssigneeSaab AB
InventorsSimone Duranti, Erik Petrini
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of creating a termination map for an aircraft over an area of interest indicating the lowest allowable flight altitude to achieve a glide path of a vehicle to a termination point of the area of interest and a map of vectors of the area of interest indicating direction towards a termination point to control an unmanned vehicle.
Claims16
A method for automatically planning a route to a predefined termination point of an unmanned vehicle when failure occurs in the vehicle resulting in that the unmanned vehicle not can complete its predetermined route in an area of interest, the method comprising:
- receiving an indication that failure has occurred;
- positioning the vehicle;
- determining control parameters, and
- controlling the vehicle to move in accordance to the determined control parameters;
- wherein said control parameters include an altitude read from a topographical map indicating lowest allowable flight altitude to achieve glide path to the termination point, and a direction read from a map of vectors pointing in the direction towards based on the position.
An unmanned vehicle comprising a control system to automatically direct the unmanned vehicle to a predefined termination point when failure occurs in the vehicle wherein the control system comprises:
- a functional monitoring system that receives indications when failure occurs;
- a positioning unit that can position the vehicle with positioning information;
- a central processing unit that determines control parameters;
- and
- a flight control system that comprises:
- a main mission control sub system adapted to control the movement of the unmanned vehicle according to a predefined route;
- and
- an emergency control sub system adapted to control the movement of the unmanned vehicle according to the control parameters received from the central processing unit;
- wherein said control parameters include an altitude read from a topographical map indicating lowest allowable flight altitude to achieve glide path to the termination point, and a direction read from a map of vectors pointing in the direction towards the termination point based on the position received from the positioning unit when a failure is indicated by the functional monitoring system.
A method of creating a map of an area of interest indicating the lowest allowable flight altitude to achieve a glide path of a vehicle to a termination point of the area of interest and a map of vectors of the area of interest indicating direction towards a termination point to control an unmanned vehicle.
A computer program product, comprising:
- a computer readable medium;
- and
- computer program instructions recorded on the computer readable medium and executable by a processor for carrying out a method of creating a supportive geographical data base representing an area of interest useable for controlling an unmanned aeronautical vehicle and indicating, for every geographical position in the data base, a lowest allowable flight altitude and a course to steer to reach a predefined allowable termination point by gliding.
A data structure useable as a precaution plan and as an emergency flight plan onboard an aircraft, said data structure comprising:
- a number of records, each record corresponding to a limited geographical area, and the records together covering an area of interest for an aircraft having a mission, each record capable of holding data representative of a recommended lowest allowable flight altitude for non-emergency conditions, and also capable of holding data representative of a recommended flight direction for emergency conditions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.