AUTOMATIC STRATEGIC OFFSET FUNCTION

• US 20100161159A1
• Filed: 02/26/2010
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Dey, Michael E., Myers, Robert J., Gunn, Peter D., Cornell, Bradley D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,185,258 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/4
• 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

A system may generate a modified flight plan for an aircraft based on an original flight plan. The system may provide an automatic strategic offset function that includes 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. The flight management computer may be operably coupled with the autoflight system and/or the sensor system. The flight management computer may process a flight plan of the vehicle and generate a non-uniform offset value in the vertical and/or lateral orientation between the flight plan and a boundary. The offset value may be used to create an offset flight plan for navigating an aircraft.

Claims

1. 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 an aircraft 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 the aircraft.

2. The system of claim 1, 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.

3. The system of claim 2, 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.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the flight management computer generates the random offset value to the flight plan to optimize the total miles flown to minimize fuel usage.

5. The system of claim 1, 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.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the boundary includes at least one of Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) or Required Navigation Performance (RNP) incorporating Actual Navigation Performance (ANP).

7. A navigation system comprising:

a flight system to determine a flight plan of an aircraft and a boundary around the flight plan;

a location sensor to determine a location of the aircraft with respect at least one of the flight plan or the boundary; and

a flight controller to generate an offset flight plan for navigating the aircraft, the offset flight plan being variably offset from the flight plan by offset values that are in at least one of the vertical or lateral orientation with respect to the flight plan, the offset flight plan being located within the boundary.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the flight controller generates each of the offset values for a segment defined between successive published waypoints of the flight plan.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the flight controller generates the offset values based on a random multiplier.

10. The system of claim 7, further comprising a display device to display the offset flight plan.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the flight controller generates the offset values based at least in part on an operator input.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the flight system controls the aircraft to navigate along the offset flight plan using the location sensor.

13. An aircraft system comprising a flight controller to generate offset values and offset flight segments for navigating an aircraft between an origination point and a destination point, the offset flight segments being variably offset from flight plan segments defined between waypoints of a flight plan, the offset flight segments being within a boundary defined around the flight plan and the variable offset based on the offset values.

14. The aircraft system of claim 13, wherein the flight controller enables the aircraft to navigate between the origination point and the destination point via contiguous instances of the offset flight segments, the aircraft to navigate along a substantial portion of each of the offset flight segments after transitioning between consecutive ones of the offset flight segments.

15. The aircraft system of claim 13, wherein the offset values are at least one of vertical offset values or horizontal offset values.

16. The aircraft system of claim 13, wherein the flight controller generates the offset values as random offset values that result in creation of the offset flight segments that are within the boundary and variably offset from the flight plan.

17. The aircraft system of claim 13, wherein the flight controller generates the offset values based at least in part on an operator input.

18. The aircraft system of claim 13, further comprising a display device to display the offset flight plan segments.

19. The aircraft system of claim 13, further comprising a location sensor including at least one of a global positioning system, an inertial reference unit, or an air data computer to determine a location of the aircraft with respect to at least one of the boundary, the flight plan, or the offset flight segments.