Method and device for assisting the mission tracking of an aircraft

• US 9,254,910 B2
• Filed: 06/05/2013
• Issued: 02/09/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Airbus Operations (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company EADS NV)
• Original Assignee: Airbus Operations (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company EADS NV)
• Inventors: Mere, Jean-Claude, Babando, Olivier, Marinelli, Mauro, Dramet, Julien
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, John Q
• Assistant Examiner(s): ODEH, NADEEM N
• Application Number:
  US13/910,372
• Publication Number:
  US 20140005861A1
• Time in Patent Office: 979 Days
• Field of Search: 701/3, 701/14, 701/123
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B64C 19/00 Aircraft control not otherwise provided for
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0039 Modification of a flight plan
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0052 for cruising combined instruments indicating more than one navigational value G01C23/00

Abstract

The device (1) comprises means (15) for computing deviations of a flight parameter with respect to a reference flight plan, by taking account of predictions, respectively for a plurality of flight data representing different origins, and display means (5) for simultaneously presenting the set of said deviations on a screen (6) of the flight deck of the aircraft, each time indicating the corresponding origin.

Claims

1. A method for assisting the mission tracking of an aircraft performed during a flight of said aircraft following a reference flight plan, the steps of the method are performed automatically and comprise:

measuring actual values of various types of flight data each relating to said aircraft during the flight as actually flown;

calculating an actual value of a flight performance condition representing the performance of the aircraft based on an actual flight path of the aircraft to a current flight location and one or more of the actual values of the various types of flight data;

calculating a predicted value of the flight performance condition based on the reference flight path to the current flight location and the one or more of the actual values of the various types of flight data;

calculating a deviation in the flight performance condition based on a difference between the actual value of the condition and the predicted value;

for each of a plurality of flight parameters each affecting the flight performance condition representing the performance of the aircraft;

calculating an actual value of the flight parameter based on the actual flight path of the aircraft to the current flight location, and one or more of the actual values of the various types of flight data;

determining a predicted value of the flight parameter based on the reference flight path to the current flight location;

calculating a deviation in the flight parameter based on a difference between the actual value of the flight parameter and the predicted value, and

computing a relative contribution to the deviation in the flight performance condition due to the deviation in the flight parameter, wherein the relative contribution is relative to the relative contributions of the other deviations in the flight parameters; and

presenting the relative contributions of the deviations of the flight parameters on a display screen in a flight deck of the aircraft, wherein the relative contributions are presented simultaneously on the display screen.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said flight performance condition represents at least one of the following:

a quantity of fuel at a given point; and

a transit time at a given point.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said flight parameters comprise at least one of the following:

speed of the aircraft;

wind speed of the atmosphere proximate to the aircraft;

air temperature of the atmosphere proximate to the aircraft;

altitude of the aircraft; and

the actual flight path of the aircraft.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the flight performance condition represents a measured quantity of fuel in or consumed by the aircraft and the method further comprising:

calculating an actual quantity of fuel remaining in or consumed by the aircraft flying the actual flight path to the current flight location, wherein the calculation accounts for an evolution of a performance factor of the aircraft during the flight and external atmospheric conditions actually encountered by the aircraft during the flight;

calculating a predicted quantity of fuel remaining in or consumed by the aircraft flying the reference flight plan to the current flight location, wherein the calculation accounts for the evolution of a performance factor of the aircraft during the flight and the external atmospheric conditions actually encountered by the aircraft during the flight; and

the calculation of the deviation in the flight condition is based on a difference between the actual quantity of fuel and the predicted quantity of fuel.

5. The method as claimed claim 1, further comprising automatically comparing an input initial flight plan entered before or at the start of the flight to a stored reference flight plan.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising automatically substituting a current flight plan for the reference flight plan when a certain condition is fulfilled and thereafter using the current flight plan as the reference flight plan.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising emitting at least one alert message, when at least one deviation of the flight parameters exceeds a threshold value.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least one graphic is displayed, and the graphic presents historical values of one of the flight parameters during the mission, wherein the graphic presents:

actual values of the flight parameter wherein each actual value corresponds to a position of the aircraft on the flight plan up to and including the current position, and predicted values of the flight parameter wherein each predicted value corresponds to a position along the flight plan beyond the current position.

9. The method as claimed in claim 8, wherein another graphic is display showing values of the flight parameter along an alternative flight plan.

10. The method as claimed in claim 8, wherein several graphics each relating to a different one of the flight parameters are displayed on said screen simultaneously.

11. A device for assisting the mission tracking of an aircraft, said device comprising:

means for retrieving and processing a reference flight plan relating to a reference mission for the aircraft;

means for calculating an actual value of a flight performance condition representing the performance of the aircraft based on an actual flight path of the aircraft to a current flight location and one or more of the actual values of the various types of flight data;

calculating a predicted value of the flight performance condition based on the reference flight path to the current flight location and the one or more of the actual values of the various types of flight data; and

calculating a deviation in the flight performance condition based on a difference between the actual value of the condition and the predicted value;

means for calculating actual values of flight parameters relating to the aircraft, wherein the calculations are made during a flight of said aircraft;

means for calculating, for each of the flight parameters, a deviation of said flight parameter with respect to the calculated actual value of the flight parameter and a predicted value of the flight parameter computed by estimating the value of the flight parameter based on the aircraft following the reference flight plan, and calculating relative contribution to the deviation in the flight performance condition due to the deviations for each of the flight parameters, and

a display screen on a flight deck of the aircraft configured to simultaneously display the relative contributions to the deviation of the flight condition.

12. The device as claimed in claim 11, which further comprises:

means for retrieving and processing an active flight plan and an alternative flight plan; and

means for retrieving and processing data of computation modules.

13. An aircraft, which comprises a device such as that specified under claim 11.

14. A method to assist a flight crew to track a flight parameter of an aircraft with respect to a reference flight plan, the method comprising:

collecting actual values for various types of flight parameters while the aircraft is in flight, wherein the types of flight parameters includes aircraft speed, wind, temperature, aircraft altitude and actual aircraft flight route;

measuring an actual value of fuel consumption of the aircraft corresponding to a certain position of the aircraft along the actual aircraft flight route;

computing a predicted value for the fuel consumption by estimating performance of the aircraft along the reference flight plan to the certain position and using the collected values for the flight parameters;

computing a fuel consumption difference between the predicted value and the actual value of the fuel consumption;

for each of the flight parameters, calculating a deviation value by determining a difference between the actual value of the flight parameter and a predicted value of the flight parameter;

computing relative contribution values to the fuel consumption difference for each of the flight parameters based on the deviation values for each of the flight parameters, and

presenting the relative contribution values simultaneously on a display in the flight deck of the aircraft, wherein the presentation indicates a relative contribution of each of the flight parameters to the fuel consumption difference.