Method And System For Aiding The Taxiing Of An Aircraft On An Airport Domain

• US 20120136562A1
• Filed: 11/23/2011
• Published: 05/31/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Airbus Operations (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company EADS NV)
• Original Assignee: Airbus Operations (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company EADS NV)
• Inventors: Mere, Jean-Claude, Revertegat, Lucille
• Granted Patent: US 8,527,190 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/120
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0021 located in the aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/065 Navigation or guidance aids, e.g. for taxiing or rolling

Abstract

Method and system for aiding the taxiing of an aircraft on an airport domain.

The system (1) includes a device 2) for generating a taxiing trajectory of the aircraft on the airport domain, with the aid of a navigation data base (3), and means (4, 5) that use this trajectory for aiding the taxiing of the aircraft.

Claims

1. A system for aiding the piloting of an aircraft taxiing on an airport domain, said system (1) comprising:

a device (2) for generating a trajectory for taxiing the aircraft in the airport domain, from an airport database (3), said device (2) comprising;

first means (8) for receiving a path comprising a succession of identifiers for elements of the airport domain which has to be consecutively followed by the aircraft, an element representing a distinct and bounded portion of the airport domain; and

seventh means (15) for providing a trajectory (T3) to piloting aiding means (4, 5); and

said piloting aiding means (4, 5) that use said trajectory (T3) received from said device (2), for aiding the piloting of the aircraft,

characterized in that said device (2) comprises furthermore;

second means (9) for automatically extracting from the airport database (3) surface elements (E1 to E9), that is the whole of the surface elements relating to said succession of path element identifiers that has to be followed by the aircraft, a surface element being a polygon bounding and locating a part of the airport domain surface;

third means (20, 21) for providing, for each extracted surface element, connectivity information relating to surface elements connected to this latter and relating to the whole of the polylines having at least one point in this latter, such polylines being extracted from the airport database (3), a polyline being a series of lines in a continuous way;

fourth means (12) for automatically identifying the starting and arrival points (Pi, Pf) of said path;

fifth means (13) for automatically determining the way linking the starting and arrival points (Pi, Pf), by covering the whole of the extracted polylines; and

sixth means (14) for automatically converting the polylines into a succession of curves forming a trajectory (T3) likely to be followed by the aircraft.

2. The system according to claim 1,

characterized in that said third means (20) comprise:

means (10) for automatically performing a connectivity test in order to check that the surface elements (E1 to E9) extracted by the second means (9) are connected, that is adjacent two to two, and should this not be the case, to extract, from said airport database (3), an auxiliary surface element (Ea1, Ea2) which is connected both to the surface element which could not be connected and to a following surface element; and

means (11) for automatically extracting from said database (3), polylines, that is the whole of the polylines having at least one point in one of the extracted surface elements.

3. The system according to claim 1,

characterized in that said third means (21) comprise means (22) for extracting connectivity information from said database (3) which comprises, in addition to surface elements (E1 to E9) and polylines, at least information indicating, for each surface element, the whole of the surface elements which are connected thereto.

4. A method for aiding the taxiing of an aircraft on an airport domain, this method having steps wherein:

A/ a trajectory is generated for the taxiing of the aircraft on the airport domain from an airport database (3) by performing the following steps consisting in;

a) receiving a path comprising a succession of identifiers for elements of the airport domain that the aircraft has to follow successively, an element of the airport domain representing a distinct and bounded portion of the airport domain; and

g) providing a trajectory (T3) to piloting aiding means (4, 5); and

B/ said piloting aiding means (4, 5) use this trajectory (T3) for aiding the piloting of the aircraft,

characterized in that, between steps A/e) and A/g), the following successive steps are performed consisting in;

b) automatically extracting from the airport database (3) surface elements (E1 to E9), that is the whole of the surface elements relating to said succession of path element identifiers that has to be followed by the aircraft, a surface element being a polygon bounding and locating a part of the airport domain surface;

c) generating, for each extracted surface element (E1 a E9), connectivity information relating to at least surface elements connected to this one and to the whole of the polylines having at least one point in this one, such polylines being extracted from the airport database (3), a polyline being a series of lines in a continuous way;

d) automatically identifying starting and arrival points (Pi, Pf);

e) automatically determining with the aid of the whole of the polylines extracted at step c), the way linking the starting and arrival points (Pi, Pf) along at least some of said polylines; and

f) automatically converting these polylines being representative of said way into a succession of curves forming a trajectory (T3) likely to be followed by the aircraft.

5. The method according to claim 4,

characterized in that at step c):

c1) a connectivity test is automatically performed to check that the surface elements (E1 to E9) extracted at step b) are connected, that is adjacent two to two, and should this not be the case, from said airport database at least one auxiliary surface element (Ea1, Ea2) is extracted, which is connected both to the surface element which could not be connected and to a following surface element; and

c2) from said airport database (3), polylines are automatically extracted, that is the whole of the polylines having at least one point in one of the surface elements extracted upon the steps b) and c1).

6. The method according to claim 5,

characterized in that at step c1), if two surface elements are neither connected, nor connectable by an auxiliary surface element, the trajectory generation is continued.

7. The method according to claim 4,

characterized in that at step c), the connectivity information of said airport database (3) which comprises, in addition to surface elements (E1 to E9) and polylines, at least information indicating, for each surface element, the whole of the surface elements that are connected thereto.

8. The method according to claim 4,

characterized in that, for the surface elements extracted from the airport database (3), the following operations are performed:

from the whole of the polylines of the database, the polylines which are distant from the considered surface element are eliminated; and

for the remaining polylines, the polylines completely or partially included in said surface element are determined by calculating for each point of each polyline, the number of intersections between the infinite half-line and each length defining the contour of said surface element.

9. The method according to claim 4,

characterized in that at step d), in order to identify the starting and arrival points (Pi, Pf) of the path, each time the whole of the ends of the polylines, located outside the corresponding surface element, that is the first surface element of the path for the starting point and the last surface element of the path for the arrival point, is considered.

10. The method according to claim 4,

characterized in that at step e):

e1) all the ways linking the starting and arrival points (Pi, Pf) are determined by covering the whole of the polylines extracted at step c), a way being a succession of polylines connected to each other; and

e2) the way being searched is determined and selected amongst all these ways.

11. The method according to claim 10,

characterized in that at step e2):

for each one of said ways it is checked if the angle between the tangents of two successive polylines of this way is part of a predetermined angle domain, and this for all the successive polylines of the way; and

only the ways respecting this condition for all the successive polylines of said ways are taken into account.

12. The method according to claim 4,

characterized in that, if at step e), no continuous way linking starting and arrival points (Pi, Pf) has been found, the longest way up to discontinuity is chosen, starting by the starting point and in the same way, the shortest way from the arrival point is also taken into account.

13. The method according to claim 4,

characterized in that at step f), said polylines are converted into a succession of Bezier curves which form a trajectory (T2).