Terrain following altitude profile generation for route planning

At least one computer readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions, which when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to:

• segment an input flight path into a plurality of segments based on terrain data;
• set a plurality of waypoints along the plurality of segments;
• identify a plurality of possible connection points from the plurality of waypoints that connect to a first waypoint of the plurality of waypoints, wherein the possible connection points include a first possible connection point and second possible connection points;
• identify a first slope between the first possible connection point and the first waypoint;
• identify second slopes between the second possible connection points and the first waypoint;
• eliminate the second possible connection points from the plurality of waypoints based on the second slopes;
• maintain the first possible connection point in the plurality of waypoints based on the first slope;
• and
• generate a final flight path based at least in part on the plurality of waypoints, wherein at least one aircraft is controlled to navigate along the final flight path.

A method for controlling at least one aircraft comprising:

• segmenting an input flight path into a plurality of segments based on terrain data;
• setting a plurality of waypoints along the plurality of segments;
• identifying a plurality of possible connection points from the plurality of waypoints that connect to a first waypoint of the plurality of waypoints, wherein the possible connection points include a first possible connection point and second possible connection points;
• identifying a first slope between the first possible connection point and the first waypoint;
• identifying second slopes between the second possible connection points and the first waypoint;
• eliminating the second possible connection points from the plurality of waypoints based on the second slopes;
• maintaining the first possible connection point in the plurality of waypoints based on the first slope;
• and
• generating a final flight path based at least in part on the plurality of waypoints, wherein the at least one aircraft is controlled to navigate along the final flight path.