PROVIDING DATA FOR PREDICTING AIRCRAFT TRAJECTORY

• US 20120290154A1
• Filed: 01/27/2012
• Published: 11/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Navarro, Francisco A., Lopez Leones, Javier, Casado, Enrique, Vilaplana, Miguel
• Granted Patent: US 9,153,136 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/3
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0021 located in the aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0034 Assembly of a flight plan
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0043 Traffic management of multiple aircrafts from the ground G08G5/003 takes precedence; data processing specially designed for resource management, e.g. scheduling or allocating time, human or machine resources G06Q10/06
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0082 for monitoring traffic from a ground station radar or analogous systems specially adapted for traffic control G01S13/91

Abstract

The present invention provides a system and method of producing a description of the flight intent of an aircraft expressed using a formal language. The description may be used to generate a predicted aircraft trajectory, for example by air traffic management. Rules are used in association with information provided to express the flight intent of the aircraft in a formal language. The flight intent describes a flight in terms of flight segments, and provides information of the path to be flown and how it is to be flown. The flight intent does not necessarily define unambiguously the aerodynamic configuration of the aircraft and the motion of the aircraft during the flight. The flight intent is used alongside other information to generate the aircraft intent that does describe unambiguously the aircraft'"'"'s trajectory.

Claims

1. A method of providing a description of a flight intent of an aircraft to be flown on a flight expressed using a formal language, the method comprising:

receiving information describing how the aircraft is to be flown including motion information that describes the motion of the aircraft and configuration information that describes an aerodynamic configuration of the aircraft, and storing the information in a database;

dividing the flight onto one or more flight segments; and

for each flight segment;

determining which degrees of freedom of motion of the aircraft are defined by the information stored for that flight segment; and

expressing the flight intent for that flight segment using a formal language to define which degrees of freedom of motion of the aircraft are defined during the flight segment and which degrees of freedom of motion are not defined.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising expressing the flight intent for a flight segment so as to define an effect on aircraft motion during that flight segment.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each flight segment is defined by begin and end triggers, and wherein each begin trigger is linked to an immediately preceding end trigger with the exception of the first begin trigger.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising expressing the flight intent for a flight segment using a flight segment code that defines which degrees of motion of the aircraft are defined during the flight segment and which degrees of freedom are not defined.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein expressing flight intent for a flight segment further comprises defining a constraint by the effect that the constraint has on the aircraft'"'"'s motion.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein expressing flight intent for a flight segment further comprises defining an objective by the effect that the constraint has on the aircraft'"'"'s motion that is to be optimized.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein both a constraint and an objective may be defined only if an associated degree of freedom is open during that flight segment.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein expressing flight intent for a flight segment comprises defining instructions of aircraft intent.

9. A method of predicting the trajectory of an aircraft, the method comprising:

reading data providing a description of flight intent expressed using a formal language;

obtaining further information such that an unambiguous description of the aircraft'"'"'s trajectory during the flight is provided;

expressing the aircraft intent according to a formal language thereby providing the unambiguous description of the aircraft'"'"'s trajectory;

solving equations of motion defining aircraft motion using the expression of aircraft intent and with reference to an aircraft performance model and an earth model; and

providing a description of the predicted trajectory.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein expressing the aircraft intent using a formal language comprises providing at least one of the information necessary and references to where the information may be found, the information being necessary to solve equations of motion describing aircraft flight and so compute a trajectory of the aircraft.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving a set of instructions expressed in a formal language that relate to the aircraft intent of another aircraft; and

comparing the predicted trajectories to identify conflicts in the predicted trajectories.

12. An aircraft trajectory predictor system, comprising:

means for reading data providing a description of flight intent expressed using a formal language;

means for obtaining further information such that an unambiguous description of the aircraft'"'"'s trajectory during the flight is provided;

means for expressing the aircraft intent according to a formal language thereby providing the unambiguous description of the aircraft'"'"'s trajectory;

means for solving equations of motion defining aircraft motion using the expression of aircraft intent and with reference to an aircraft performance model and an Earth model; and

means for providing a description of the predicted trajectory.

13. The system of claim 12, comprising means for receiving at least one of information necessary and references to where the information may be found, the information being necessary to solve equations of motion describing aircraft flight for a plurality of aircraft and so compute a trajectory for each of the plurality of aircraft.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising:

means for comparing the predicted trajectories to identify potential trajectory conflicts between the plurality of aircraft.

15. A computer-implemented method of providing a description of flight intent of an aircraft to be flown on a flight expressed using a formal language, the method comprising:

receiving information describing how the aircraft is to be flown including motion information and configuration information;

dividing the flight into one or more flight segments; and

expressing the flight intent for each flight segment using a formal language to define which degrees of freedom of motion of the aircraft are defined during the flight segment and which degrees of freedom of motion are not defined.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15 further comprising determining which degrees of freedom of motion of the aircraft are defined by the information stored for that flight segment.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 15 further comprising deriving aircraft intent from the flight intent and using the aircraft intent to generate a predicted trajectory for the aircraft.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17 further comprising comparing the predicted trajectory of the aircraft to another predicted trajectory of another aircraft in order to identify potential trajectory conflicts.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18 further comprising resolving any potential trajectory conflicts by advising one or more of the aircraft of necessary changes to their flight intent or their aircraft intent.

20. The method of claim 15 further comprising expressing the flight intent for a flight segment so as to define an effect on aircraft motion during that flight segment.