Providing data for predicting aircraft trajectory

• US 9,153,136 B2
• Filed: 01/27/2012
• Issued: 10/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Lopez Leones, Javier, Casado, Enrique, Vilaplana, Miguel, Navarro, Francisco A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jabr, Fadey
• Assistant Examiner(s): Troost, Aaron L
• Application Number:
  US13/360,318
• Publication Number:
  US 20120290154A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,348 Days
• Field of Search: 701/3, 701/4
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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, implemented by a computational infrastructure, 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 at an input of the computational infrastructure 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, by the computational infrastructure, the flight onto one or more flight segments having one or more constraints and one or more objectives, wherein the one or more flight segments represent an intent of changing an aircraft motion state from one state into another, the one or more constraints represent a restriction on a trajectory of the aircraft, and the one or more objectives represent a desire relating to the trajectory to maximize or minimize a certain function;

for each flight segment following, by the computational infrastructure, a set of rules, using the computational infrastructure, that govern the creation of valid words using the flight segment, the one or more constraints for the flight segment, and the one or more objectives for the flight segment to express the flight intent using a formal language made up of the valid words which defines 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 during the flight segment;

for each flight segment following, by the computational infrastructure, a set of attributes, being an effect, an execution interval, and a flight segment code that govern the creation of the valid words, the effect comprising aircraft behavior exhibited during the flight segment represented by a composite, the execution interval defining an interval during which the flight segment is active defining an initial aircraft state and a final aircraft state, and the flight segment code comprising an alphanumeric string wherein each letter or number in the alphanumeric string represents one of the degrees of freedom of the motion of the aircraft; and

transmitting the flight intent of the aircraft using the formal language to the aircraft, to another aircraft, or to an air traffic manager.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein there is provided the further step of providing information that expresses the flight intent for one of the flight segments so as to define the effect on aircraft motion during that flight segment.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of dividing, by the computational infrastructure, the flight into one or more flight segments is responsive to begin and end triggers in the computational infrastructure, 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, wherein there is provided the further step of providing information that expresses the flight intent for one of the flight segments using the flight segment code that defines which of the degrees of freedom of motion of the aircraft are defined during the flight segment and which of the degrees of freedom of motion are not defined during the flight segment.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of for each flight segment following, by the computational infrastructure, the set of rules to express the flight intent using the formal language further comprises defining the one or more constraints by the effect that the one or more constraints has on the aircraft'"'"'s motion.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said step of for each flight segment following, by the computational infrastructure, the set of rules to express the flight intent using the formal language further comprises defining the one or more objectives by the effect that the one or more constraints has on the aircraft'"'"'s motion that is to be optimized.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of rules specifies that the one or more constraints and the one or more objectives may be defined only if an associated degree of freedom is open during that flight segment.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of for each flight segment following, by the computational infrastructure, the set of rules to express the flight intent using the formal language further comprises defining instructions of aircraft intent.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising for each constraint following, by the computational infrastructure, the set of attributes, being the effect, a domain of application, and the execution interval, the effect comprising a mathematical expression defining an influence of the constraint on the motion of the aircraft, the domain of the application comprising the interval where the constraint is active and in which its effect is applied to the motion of the aircraft, and the execution interval indicating when the constraint is considered active in a trajectory prediction process.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising for each objective following, by the computational infrastructure, the set of attributes, being the effect, a domain of application, and the execution interval, the effect comprising a mathematical expression defining an influence of the objective in the motion of the aircraft, the domain of application defining the interval where the objective is active and in which its effect is applied to the motion of the aircraft, and the execution interval indicating when the objective is considered active in a trajectory prediction process.

11. A method, implemented by a computational infrastructure, of predicting the trajectory of an aircraft, the method comprising:

following a set of rules that govern the creation of valid words based on a flight segment, one or more constraints for the flight segment, and one or more objectives for the flight segment to express a flight intent of the aircraft using a formal language made up of the valid words which defines 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 during the flight segment, wherein the flight segment represents an intent of changing an aircraft motion state from one state into another, the one or more constraints represent a restriction on the trajectory of the aircraft, and the one or more objectives represent a desire relating to the trajectory to maximize or minimize a certain function;

for each flight segment following a set of attributes, being an effect, an execution interval, and a flight segment code that govern the creation of the valid words, the effect comprising aircraft behavior exhibited during the flight segment represented by a composite, the execution interval defining an interval during which the flight segment is active defining an initial aircraft state and a final aircraft state, and the flight segment code comprising an alphanumeric string wherein each letter or number in the alphanumeric string represents one of the degrees of freedom of the motion of the aircraft;

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

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

expressing, by the computational infrastructure, the aircraft intent using the formal language to provide the unambiguous description of the aircraft'"'"'s trajectory;

solving, by the computational infrastructure, equations of motion in the computational infrastructure to define aircraft motion using the expression of aircraft intent and with reference to an aircraft performance model and an earth model; and

transmitting, by the computational infrastructure, a description of the predicted trajectory to the aircraft, to another aircraft, or to an air traffic manager.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of expressing, by the computational infrastructure, the aircraft intent using the formal language comprises the step of providing at least one of the information necessary or references to where the information may be found, the information being necessary to perform the step of solving the equations of motion that describe aircraft flight and to compute the aircraft'"'"'s trajectory.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

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

comparing, with the computational infrastructure, predicted trajectories to identify conflicts in the predicted trajectories.

14. An aircraft trajectory predictor system, comprising:

an input of a computational infrastructure configured to receive data corresponding to a description of flight intent expressed using a formal language made up of valid words formed by following a set of rules applied to a flight segment, one or more constraints for the flight segment, and one or more objectives for the flight segment defining which degrees of freedom of motion of an aircraft are defined during the flight segment and which degrees of freedom of motion are not defined during the flight segment, wherein the flight segment represents an intent of changing an aircraft motion state from one state into another, the one or more constraints represent a restriction on a trajectory of the aircraft, and the one or more objectives represent a desire relating to the trajectory to maximize or minimize a certain function, wherein the data corresponding to the description of the flight intent expressed using the formal language made up of the valid words is further formed for each flight segment following a set of attributes, being an effect, an execution interval, and a flight segment code that govern the creation of the valid words, the effect comprising aircraft behavior exhibited during the flight segment represented by a composite, the execution interval defining an interval during which the flight segment is active defining an initial aircraft state and a final aircraft state, and the flight segment code comprising an alphanumeric string wherein each letter or number in the alphanumeric string represents one of the degrees of freedom of the motion of the aircraft;

a further input of a computational infrastructure configured to receive further information such that an unambiguous description of the aircraft'"'"'s trajectory during the flight is provided;

an output of a computational infrastructure configured to produce a formal language expression corresponding to an aircraft intent, the formal language expression corresponding to the unambiguous description of the aircraft'"'"'s trajectory;

a trajectory engine of a computational infrastructure configured to solve equations of motion defining aircraft motion using the formal language expression of aircraft intent and with reference to an aircraft performance model and an earth model; and

a further output of a computational infrastructure configured to transmit information corresponding to a description of the predicted trajectory to the aircraft, to another aircraft, or to an air traffic manager.

15. The system of claim 14, comprising an aircraft model data input of a computational infrastructure configured to receive at least one of information necessary or references to where the information may be found, the information being necessary to solve the equations of motion describing aircraft flight for a plurality of aircraft and to compute a predicted trajectory for each of the plurality of aircraft.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the computational infrastructure is configured to compare the predicted trajectories to identify potential trajectory conflicts between the plurality of aircraft.

17. 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 at an input of a computational infrastructure information describing how the aircraft is to be flown including motion information and configuration information;

dividing the flight into one or more flight segments having one or more constraints and one or more objectives, wherein the one or more flight segments represent an intent of changing an aircraft motion state from one state into another, the one or more constraints represent a restriction on a trajectory of the aircraft, and the one or more objectives represent a desire relating to the trajectory to maximize or minimize a certain function;

providing at an output of the computational infrastructure information that expresses the flight intent for each flight segment using a formal language, which follows a set of rules to govern the creation of valid words using the flight segment, the one or more constraints for the flight segment, and the one or more objectives for the flight segment, 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 during the flight segment;

for each flight segment following a set of attributes, being an effect, an execution interval, and a flight segment code that govern the creation of the valid words, the effect comprising aircraft behavior exhibited during the flight segment represented by a composite, the execution interval defining an interval during which the flight segment is active defining an initial aircraft state and a final aircraft state, and the flight segment code comprising an alphanumeric string wherein each letter or number in the alphanumeric string represents one of the degrees of freedom of the motion of the aircraft; and

transmitting the flight intent of the aircraft using the formal language to the aircraft, to another aircraft, or to an air traffic manager.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17 further comprising the further step of determining in the computational infrastructure the degrees of freedom of motion of the aircraft that are defined by the information stored for that flight segment.

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

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 19 further comprising comparing the predicted trajectory of the aircraft to another predicted trajectory of another aircraft in order to identify potential trajectory conflicts.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 20 further comprising resolving potential trajectory conflicts by advising one or more of the aircraft of necessary changes to their flight intent or their aircraft intent.

22. The method of claim 17 further comprising providing at an output of the computational infrastructure information that expresses the flight intent for one of the flight segments so as to define the effect on aircraft motion during that flight segment.