PROVIDING A DESCRIPTION OF AIRCRAFT INTENT

• US 20130317672A1
• Filed: 05/24/2013
• Published: 11/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Magana Casado, Enrique Juan, Besada, Juan Alberto, Lopez Leones, Javier, Navarro, Francisco, Bernardos Barbolla, Ana Maria, Frontera, Guillermo
• Granted Patent: US 8,977,411 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/3
• CPC Class Codes: B64C 19/00 Aircraft control not otherwise provided for
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/106 Change initiated in response to external conditions, e.g. avoidance of elevated terrain or of no-fly zones
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0013 with a ground station
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0082 for monitoring traffic from a ground station radar or analogous systems specially adapted for traffic control G01S13/91
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/025 Navigation or guidance aids radar or analogous systems specially adapted for landing purposes G01S13/913

Abstract

The present disclosure provides a computer-implemented method of generating a description of aircraft intent expressed in a formal language that provides an unambiguous description of an aircraft'"'"'s intended motion and configuration during a period of flight. A description of flight intent is parsed to provide instances of flight intent, each instance of flight intent spanning a flight segment. For each flight segment, an associated flight segment description is generated that comprises one or more instances of flight intent that describe the aircraft'"'"'s motion in at least one degree of freedom of motion. One or more instances of flight intent are added to flight segments to close all degrees of freedom of motion. The flight segment descriptions are collated thereby providing a description of aircraft intent for the period of flight expressed in a formal language.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of generating a description of aircraft intent expressed in a formal language that provides an unambiguous description of an aircraft'"'"'s intended motion and configuration during a period of flight, comprising:

obtaining a description of flight intent corresponding to a flight plan spanning the period of flight;

ensuring that the flight intent description is parsed to provide instances of flight intent, each instance of flight intent spanning a flight segment with the flight segments together spanning the period of flight;

for each flight segment, generating an associated flight segment description that comprises one or more instances of flight intent, wherein each instance of flight intent provides a description of the aircraft'"'"'s motion in at least one degree of freedom of motion thereby closing the associated at least one degree of freedom of motion and/or provides a description of the aircraft'"'"'s configuration to close at least one degree of freedom of configuration;

identifying flight segments where not all degrees of freedom are closed and completing the identified flight segments by adding one or more instances of flight intent to close all degrees of freedom; and

collating the flight segment descriptions thereby providing a description of aircraft intent for the period of flight expressed in a formal language.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein adding one or more instances of flight intent comprises selecting a strategy from a plurality of stored strategies and adding an instance of flight intent corresponding to that strategy.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the strategies are identified by the degrees of freedom they influence, and a strategy is selected to close a degree of freedom from the strategies identified to influence that degree of freedom.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the strategies are identified by a phase of flight to which they apply, and a strategy is selected to close a degree of freedom from the strategies identified to influence that degree of freedom and identified to apply to the phase of flight associated with the flight segment.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of adding an instance of flight intent includes providing a parameter range thereby forming a parametric aircraft intent, and the method further comprises optimising the parametric aircraft intent by determining an optimal value for the parameter of each parameter range.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein determining the optimal values comprises:

generating initial parameter values thereby forming a model aircraft intent;

calculating a trajectory from the model aircraft intent;

calculating a merit function value for the trajectory using a merit function; and

repeated iterations of amending the parameter values, calculating the resulting trajectory and calculating the resulting merit function value to determine whether the description of aircraft intent is improved, thereby optimising the parameter values by improving the merit function value.

7. The method of claim 6, comprising retrieving objectives pertaining to the period of flight and using the objectives to form the merit function;

and wherein the objectives are pre-defined by operators of the aircraft and are stored in a user preferences model.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the description of flight intent obtained includes a description of a set of initial conditions of the aircraft at the start of the period of flight.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising obtaining a description of a set of initial conditions of the aircraft at the start of the period of flight and ensuring that the flight intent description and the initial conditions are parsed to provide the instances of flight intent.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

checking that the aircraft intent meets one or more constraints pertaining to the aircraft and, if not;

returning to the parsed flight intent description derived from the obtained flight intent;

identifying flight segments where not all degrees of freedom are closed and completing the identified flight segments selecting an alternative strategy from the plurality of stored strategies and adding an instance of flight intent corresponding to that strategy to close all degrees of freedom;

collating the flight segment descriptions thereby providing an alternative description of aircraft intent for the period of flight expressed in a formal language; and

repeating the step of checking that the aircraft intent meets one or more constraints pertaining to the aircraft.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

checking that the aircraft intent meets one or more constraints pertaining to the aircraft and, if not;

for the flight segments where constraints are not met, returning to the flight description derived by parsing the obtained flight intent, completing the flight segment by selecting an alternative strategy from the plurality of stored strategies and adding an instance of flight intent corresponding to that strategy to close all degrees of freedom; and

collating the flight segment descriptions thereby providing an alternative description of aircraft intent for the period of flight expressed in a formal language; and

repeating the step of checking that the aircraft intent meets one or more constraints pertaining to the aircraft.

12. The method of claim 1 comprising calculating a trajectory for the period of flight from the aircraft intent and, optionally, causing the aircraft to fly that trajectory or comparing the trajectory with trajectories of other aircraft to identify conflicts.

13. A system for generating a description of aircraft intent expressed in a formal language that provides an unambiguous description of an aircraft'"'"'s intended motion and configuration during a period of flight, the system comprising:

A processor;

A storage medium comprising instructions thereon, that when executed by said processor, cause the processor to;

obtain a description of flight intent corresponding to a flight plan spanning a period of flight;

ensure that the flight intent description is parsed to provide instances of flight intent, each instance of flight intent spanning a flight segment with the flight segments together spanning the period of flight;

for each flight segment, generate an associated flight segment description that comprises one or more instances of flight intent, wherein each instance of flight intent provides a description of the aircraft'"'"'s motion in at least one degree of freedom of motion thereby closing the associated at least one degree of freedom of motion and/or provides a description of the aircraft'"'"'s configuration to close at least one degree of freedom of configuration;

identify flight segments where not all degrees of freedom are closed and complete the identified flight segments by adding one or more instances of flight intent to close all degrees of freedom; and

collate the flight segment descriptions thereby providing a description of aircraft intent for the period of flight expressed in a formal language.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein adding one or more instances of flight intent comprises selecting a strategy from a plurality of stored strategies and adding an instance of flight intent corresponding to that strategy.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the strategies are identified by the degrees of freedom they influence, and a strategy is selected to close a degree of freedom from the strategies identified to influence that degree of freedom.

16. The system of claim 14 wherein the strategies are identified by a phase of flight to which they apply, and a strategy is selected to close a degree of freedom from the strategies identified to influence that degree of freedom and identified to apply to the phase of flight associated with the flight segment.

17. The system of claim 14 wherein the step of adding an instance of flight intent includes providing a parameter range thereby forming a parametric aircraft intent, and the system further comprises instructions, that when executed by said processor, cause the processor to optimize the parametric aircraft intent by determining an optimal value for the parameter of each parameter range.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein determining the optimal values comprises:

generating initial parameter values thereby forming a model aircraft intent;

calculating a trajectory from the model aircraft intent;

calculating a merit function value for the trajectory using a merit function; and

repeated iterations of amending the parameter values, calculating the resulting trajectory and calculating the resulting merit function value to determine whether the description of aircraft intent is improved, thereby optimising the parameter values by improving the merit function value.

19. An aircraft comprising:

A processor;

A storage medium comprising instructions thereon, that when executed by said processor, cause the processor to;

obtain a description of flight intent corresponding to a flight plan spanning a period of flight;

ensure that the flight intent description is parsed to provide instances of flight intent, each instance of flight intent spanning a flight segment with the flight segments together spanning the period of flight;

for each flight segment, generate an associated flight segment description that comprises one or more instances of flight intent, wherein each instance of flight intent provides a description of the aircraft'"'"'s motion in at least one degree of freedom of motion thereby closing the associated at least one degree of freedom of motion and/or provides a description of the aircraft'"'"'s configuration to close at least one degree of freedom of configuration;

identify flight segments where not all degrees of freedom are closed and complete the identified flight segments by adding one or more instances of flight intent to close all degrees of freedom; and

collate the flight segment descriptions thereby providing a description of aircraft intent for the period of flight expressed in a formal language.

20. A tangible computer readable storage medium having recorded thereon instructions that, when executed on a computer, cause the computer to:

obtain a description of flight intent corresponding to a flight plan spanning a period of flight;

ensure that the flight intent description is parsed to provide instances of flight intent, each instance of flight intent spanning a flight segment with the flight segments together spanning the period of flight;

for each flight segment, generate an associated flight segment description that comprises one or more instances of flight intent, wherein each instance of flight intent provides a description of the aircraft'"'"'s motion in at least one degree of freedom of motion thereby closing the associated at least one degree of freedom of motion and/or provides a description of the aircraft'"'"'s configuration to close at least one degree of freedom of configuration;

identify flight segments where not all degrees of freedom are closed and complete the identified flight segments by adding one or more instances of flight intent to close all degrees of freedom; and

collate the flight segment descriptions thereby providing a description of aircraft intent for the period of flight expressed in a formal language.