Automatic Strategic Offset Function

• US 20080312777A1
• Filed: 06/14/2007
• Published: 12/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Gunn, Peter D., Cornell, Bradley D., Dey, Michael E., Myers, Robert J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,698,026 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/3
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0034 Assembly of a flight plan
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0052 for cruising combined instruments indicating more than one navigational value G01C23/00

Abstract

Embodiments of methods and systems for providing an automatic strategic offset function are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method for enhancing the collision avoidance capability of an aircraft includes determining a flight plan, determining a boundary for the flight plan, generating a variable offset from the flight plan that is within the boundary, the variable offset including a lateral offset distance, and navigating an aircraft based on the variable offset.

Claims

1. A method for enhancing the collision avoidance capability of an aircraft, comprising:

determining a flight plan;

determining a boundary for the flight plan;

generating a variable offset from the flight plan that is within the boundary, the variable offset including a lateral offset distance; and

navigating an aircraft based on the variable offset.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the variable offset includes configuring a flight management computer to generate the variable offset.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the variable offset is generated randomly to create a random offset segment including at least one of a vertical offset or a lateral offset from the flight plan, the random offset segment creating an offset from a segment of the flight plan.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the random segment is calculated between two consecutive waypoints.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the variable offset is displayed to a user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the variable offset from the flight plan includes a vertical offset distance.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the variable offset from the flight plan includes a user-generated offset value.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein navigating the aircraft based on the variable offset includes navigating the aircraft using an autoflight system.

9. A system, comprising:

an autoflight system;

a sensor system including at least one of a global positioning system, an inertial reference unit, or an air data computer; and

a flight management computer operably coupled with the autoflight system and the sensor system, the flight management computer processing a flight plan of the vehicle to generate a non-uniform offset value in the vertical and lateral orientation between the flight plan and a boundary, the offset value used to create an offset flight plan for navigating an aircraft.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein generating a non-uniform offset value includes the flight management computer automatically generating a random offset value for a segment of the flight plan.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the flight management computer is configured to selectively engage or disengage the offset from the flight plan as appropriate for an airspace environment based on information from a flight management database.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the flight management computer generates the random offset value to the flight plan to optimize the total miles flown to minimize fuel usage.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the flight management computer automatically generates a random offset value for a segment of the flight plan when the aircraft is traversing oceanic airspace.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the boundary includes at least one of Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) or Required Navigation Performance (RNP) incorporating Actual Navigation Performance (ANP).

15. A computer-readable medium encoded with computer executable instructions that cause a flight management computer having a program to perform a method for providing an automatic strategic offset function, the method performed by the program comprising:

determining a flight plan segment between two waypoints;

creating an offset between the flight plan segment and a boundary, the offset including a vertical offset and a lateral offset from the flight plan segment, the offset being updated for each new flight plan segment; and

navigating an aircraft substantially along a modified flight plan segment generated from the offset.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the offset is generated by a flight management computer.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the offset is randomly generated for the flight plan segment.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein a user can override the offset generated by the flight management computer, the user entering in an offset into the flight management computer.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein a maximum value for the lateral offset for each segment of the flight plan is generated from a storage medium.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the boundary is generated by a user.