Mission planning costing surface
First Claim
1. A method of routing covert flight paths using digital terrain elevation data of a geographical region, comprising the steps of:
- forming a hideability map from the digital terrain elevation data, said hideability map being indicative of hideable areas within the geographical region;
forming a flyability map from the digital terrain elevation data, said flyability map being indicative of flyable areas of the geographical region;
creating a costing surface from a weighted combination of said hideability map and said flyability map, where the weighted combination is based on predetermined weighting factors applied to hideability and flyability; and
routing a covert flight path through areas of said costing surface which are both hideable and flyable.
2 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
A mission planning costing surface is formed from digital terrain elevation data of a given geographical region and is for use in routing covert flight paths. To form the costing surface, a hideability map is generated from the digital terrain elevation data by assigning line of sight area values to points within the digital terrain elevation data. The hideability map is indicative of hideable areas within the geographical region. The hideability map is then quantized by assigning each of the line of sight area values to one of a set number of quantization levels. A flyability map is formed from the digital terrain elevation data by determining slopeness values for points within the digital terrain elevation data. The flyability map is indicative of flyable areas of the geographical region. The flyability map is quantized by assigning each of the slopeness values to one of the quantization levels. The costing surface is formed from a weighted combination of the quantized hideability map and the quantized flyability map.
25 Citations
10 Claims
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1. A method of routing covert flight paths using digital terrain elevation data of a geographical region, comprising the steps of:
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forming a hideability map from the digital terrain elevation data, said hideability map being indicative of hideable areas within the geographical region; forming a flyability map from the digital terrain elevation data, said flyability map being indicative of flyable areas of the geographical region; creating a costing surface from a weighted combination of said hideability map and said flyability map, where the weighted combination is based on predetermined weighting factors applied to hideability and flyability; and routing a covert flight path through areas of said costing surface which are both hideable and flyable. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of forming a costing surface from digital terrain elevation data of a geographical region for use in routing covert flight paths, comprising the steps of:
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forming a hideability map from the digital terrain elevation data by assigning line of sight area values to points within the digital terrain elevation data, said hideability map being indicative of hideable areas within the geographical region; quantizing said hideability map by assigning each of said line of sight area values to one of a plurality of quantization levels; forming a flyability map from the digital terrain elevation data by determining slopeness values for points within the digital terrain elevation data, said flyability map being indicative of flyable areas of the geographical region; quantizing said flyability map by assigning each of said slopeness values to one of a plurality of quantization levels; and creating a costing surface from a weighted combination of said quantized hideability map and said quantized flyability map, where the weighted combination is based on predetermined weighting factors applied to hideability and flyability. - View Dependent Claims (10)
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Specification