SECURE TRANSMISSION OF AN AIRCRAFT TRAJECTORY

• US 20140229094A1
• Filed: 01/17/2014
• Published: 08/14/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/13/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Vilaplana, Miguel, La Civita, Marco, Pena Ortiz, Nicolas
• Granted Patent: US 9,786,184 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/120
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0004 Transmission of traffic-related information to or from an aircraft airborne radio transmission systems in general H04B7/185; airborne wireless networks H04W84/06
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0008 with other aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0013 with a ground station
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18506 Communications with or from aircraft, i.e. aeronautical mobile service

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to the secure transmission of an aircraft trajectory that is to be flown or that has been flown. A ground-referenced description of the trajectory of the aircraft expressed in ground-referenced parameters is converted, using a description of an imaginary atmospheric model describing imaginary atmospheric conditions along the trajectory, into an air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in air-referenced parameters. For decryption, knowledge of the imaginary atmospheric conditions allows the air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory to be converted back into the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory. Thus, the ground-referenced trajectory may be though of as the plain text, the imaginary atmospheric model as the cipher key and the air-referenced trajectory as the cipher text.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of communicating securely an aircraft trajectory using encryption and decryption of a description of the aircraft trajectory, comprising

on the sender'"'"'s side:

obtaining a ground-referenced description of the trajectory of the aircraft expressed in ground-referenced parameters;

obtaining a description of an imaginary atmospheric model describing imaginary atmospheric conditions along the trajectory;

using the description of the imaginary atmospheric model to encrypt the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory by converting the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory into an air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in air-referenced parameters with respect to the imaginary atmospheric model; and

making available to the receiver the description of the imaginary atmospheric conditions and air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined;

and

on the receiver'"'"'s side;

receiving the description of the imaginary atmospheric conditions and the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined;

using the description of the imaginary atmospheric conditions to decrypt air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined by converting the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined back into the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in ground-referenced parameters.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined comprises air-referenced aircraft intent data that provides a description of aircraft intent of the aircraft expressed in air-referenced parameters corresponding to a computer language description expressed using a formal language, wherein the description of the aircraft intent is a description of how the aircraft is to be flown expressed as instructions that provides a complete description of the aircraft'"'"'s behaviour such that all degrees of freedom of motion are defined and such that a unique trajectory may be calculated unambiguously from the description of aircraft intent; and

the method comprises using the air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory, the description of the imaginary atmospheric model and an aircraft performance model that describes how the aircraft performs to generate the air-referenced aircraft intent data.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined is the air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in air-referenced parameters with respect to the imaginary atmospheric model.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory and/or the air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory comprises one or more computer data files representing a time-evolving series of either ground-referenced or air-referenced parameters respectively.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the ground-referenced parameters of the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory comprise any of longitude, latitude, altitude, ground speed, bearing and direction.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the air-referenced parameters of the air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory comprise any of air speed, Mach, aerodynamic bearing, and aerodynamic flight path angle.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, on the sender side:

obtaining a description of aircraft intent of the aircraft corresponding to a computer language description expressed using a formal language, wherein the description of the aircraft intent is a description of how the aircraft is to be flown expressed as instructions that provides a complete description of the aircraft'"'"'s behaviour such that all degrees of freedom of motion are defined and such that a unique trajectory may be calculated unambiguously from the description of aircraft intent;

obtaining a description of a real atmospheric model describing real atmospheric conditions along the trajectory;

obtaining an aircraft performance model that describes how the aircraft performs; and

using the aircraft performance model and the description of the real atmospheric conditions to generate the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in the ground-referenced parameters from the description of the aircraft intent.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the method either:

comprises generating randomly the imaginary atmospheric conditions;

or

comprises obtaining a description of a real atmospheric model describing real atmospheric conditions along the trajectory and altering the real atmospheric conditions to form the imaginary atmospheric conditions.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the description of the imaginary atmospheric conditions and the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined are passed from sender to receiver separately.

10. The method of claim 1, comprising including in the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined, a ground-referenced position of the aircraft, optionally a ground-referenced initial position of the aircraft.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising, on the receiver side, obtaining a description of a real atmospheric model describing real atmospheric conditions along the trajectory, obtaining an aircraft performance model that describes how the aircraft performs, and using the description of a real atmospheric model and an aircraft performance model to convert the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory into a description of aircraft intent corresponding to a computer language description expressed using a formal language, wherein the description of the aircraft intent is a description of how the aircraft is to be flown expressed as instructions that provides a complete description of the aircraft'"'"'s behaviour such that all degrees of freedom of motion are defined, and using the description of aircraft intent to fly the aircraft.

12. A computer-implemented method of encrypting a description of an aircraft trajectory, comprising:

obtaining a ground-referenced description of the trajectory of the aircraft expressed in ground-referenced parameters;

obtaining a description of an imaginary atmospheric model describing imaginary atmospheric conditions along the trajectory; and

using the description of the imaginary atmospheric model to encrypt the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory by converting the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory into an air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in air-referenced parameters with respect to the imaginary atmospheric model.

13. A computer program product having stored thereon a computer program for encrypting a description of an aircraft trajectory, that when executed on a computer system, will cause the computer system to:

obtain a ground-referenced description of the trajectory of the aircraft expressed in ground-referenced parameters;

obtain a description of an imaginary atmospheric model describing imaginary atmospheric conditions along the trajectory; and

use the description of the imaginary atmospheric model to encrypt the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory by converting the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory into an air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in air-referenced parameters with respect to the imaginary atmospheric model.

14. A computer infrastructure operable to communicate securely an aircraft trajectory using encryption and decryption of a description of the aircraft trajectory, comprising an encryption computer system and a decryption computer system, wherein

the encryption computer system comprises:

memory operable to store a ground-referenced description of the trajectory of the aircraft expressed in ground-referenced parameters;

memory operable to store a description of an imaginary atmospheric model describing imaginary atmospheric conditions along the trajectory;

an encryption processor programmed to use the description of the imaginary atmospheric model to encrypt the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory by converting the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory into an air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in air-referenced parameters with respect to the imaginary atmospheric model, and to make available to the decryption computer system the description of the imaginary atmospheric conditions and air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined;

and

the decryption computer system comprises;

a receiver operable to receive the description of the imaginary atmospheric conditions and the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined;

memory operable to store the description of the imaginary atmospheric conditions and the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined;

a decryption processor programmed to use the description of the imaginary atmospheric conditions to decrypt the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined by converting the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined back into the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in ground-referenced parameters.

15. The computer infrastructure of claim 14, wherein:

the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined comprises air-referenced aircraft intent data that provides a description of aircraft intent of the aircraft expressed in air-referenced parameters corresponding to a computer language description expressed using a formal language, wherein the description of the aircraft intent is a description of how the aircraft is to be flown expressed as instructions that provides a complete description of the aircraft'"'"'s behaviour such that all degrees of freedom of motion are defined and such that a unique trajectory may be calculated unambiguously from the description of aircraft intent; and

the encryption processor is further programmed to use the air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory, the description of the imaginary atmospheric model and an aircraft performance model that describes how the aircraft performs to generate the air-referenced aircraft intent data.

16. The computer infrastructure of claim 14, wherein the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined is the air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in air-referenced parameters with respect to the imaginary atmospheric model.

17. The computer infrastructure of claim 14, wherein the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory and/or the air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory comprises one or more computer data files representing a time-evolving series of either ground-referenced or air-referenced parameters respectively.

18. The computer infrastructure of claim 17, wherein the ground-referenced parameters of the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory comprise any of longitude, latitude, altitude, ground speed, bearing and direction.

19. The computer infrastructure of claim 14, wherein the description of the imaginary atmospheric conditions and the air-referenced data from which the aircraft trajectory may be unambiguously determined is made available from the encryption computer system to the decryption computer system separately.

20. A computer system operable to encrypt a description of an aircraft trajectory, comprising:

memory operable to store a ground-referenced description of the trajectory of the aircraft expressed in ground-referenced parameters;

memory operable to store a description of an imaginary atmospheric model describing imaginary atmospheric conditions along the trajectory; and

a processor programmed to use the description of the imaginary atmospheric model to encrypt the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory by converting the ground-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory into an air-referenced description of the aircraft trajectory expressed in air-referenced parameters with respect to the imaginary atmospheric model.