Multi mode safety system for vtol aircraft
AssigneeVerdeGo Aero, Inc.
InventorsRichard Pat Anderson, Eric Richard Bartsch
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An aircraft safety system includes impact energy reduction systems including: an aircraft parachute, at least one rotor configured for autorotation, and an energy absorbing system. An automatic control system uses data from speed and altitude sensors to selectively and sequentially deploy the impact energy reduction systems depending on the portion of the aircraft speed and altitude flight envelope in which the aircraft is operating when an emergency is detected.
Claims20
An aircraft having a safety system, the aircraft comprising:
- a fuselage;
- a passenger seating position within the fuselage;
- a rotor configured for autorotation;
- a parachute attached to the aircraft;
- an energy absorbing system configured to reduce an impact acceleration exerted on the passenger seating position when the fuselage impacts the ground in a substantially horizontal attitude;
- and
- an automatic emergency control system configured to:
- detect an emergency condition and,
- in response to the detection of the emergency condition, deploy the parachute, control the autorotation of the rotor, or both, to control a velocity of the fuselage at or below a threshold velocity, wherein:
- the threshold velocity is determined such that the deployment of the parachute, the autorotation of the rotor, or both, combined with the energy absorbing system maintains the impact acceleration exerted on the passenger seating position during an impact below a threshold acceleration;
- and
- a determination whether to deploy the parachute, control the autorotation of the rotor, or both, is made by the automatic emergency control system based at least in part on altitude and airspeed of the aircraft.
A method comprising
- detecting, by a processor, an emergency condition of an aircraft, wherein the aircraft comprises:
- a fuselage,
- a passenger seating position within the fuselage,
- a rotor configured for autorotation,
- a parachute attached to the aircraft, and
- an energy absorbing system configured to reduce an impact acceleration exerted on the passenger seating position when the fuselage impacts the ground in a substantially horizontal attitude;
- and
- in response to the detection of the emergency condition, deploying a parachute, controlling autorotation of the rotor, or both, to control a velocity of the fuselage at or below a threshold velocity, wherein:
- the threshold velocity is determined such that the deployment of the parachute, the control of the autorotation of the rotor, or both, combined with the energy absorbing system maintains the impact acceleration exerted on the passenger seating position during an impact below a threshold acceleration;
- and
- a determination whether to deploy the parachute, control the autorotation of the rotor, or both, is made based at least in part on altitude and airspeed of the aircraft.
A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, upon execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations, wherein the instructions comprise:
- instructions to detect, by a processor, an emergency condition of an aircraft, wherein the aircraft comprises:
- a fuselage,
- a passenger seating position within the fuselage,
- a rotor configured for autorotation,
- a parachute attached to the aircraft, and
- an energy absorbing system configured to reduce an impact acceleration exerted on the passenger seating position when the fuselage impacts the ground in a substantially horizontal attitude;
- and
- instructions to deploy a parachute, control autorotation of the rotor, or both, to control a velocity of the fuselage in response to the detection of the emergency condition, wherein:
- the threshold velocity is determined such that the deployment of the parachute, the control of the autorotation of the rotor, or both, combined with the energy absorbing system maintains the impact acceleration exerted on the passenger seating position during an impact below a threshold acceleration;
- and
- a determination whether to deploy the parachute, control the autorotation of the rotor, or both, is made based at least in part on altitude and airspeed of the aircraft.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.