Autonomous and automatic landing method and system

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed for automatic landing of an aircraft on a landing runway, including an on-board video camera intended to take images of the ground, image processor to extract from these images visual features of the landing runway, guidance system determining guidance commands of the aircraft to bring it into a nominal approach plane and to align it with the axis of the landing runway, from the respective positions of the visual features of the landing runway, in at least one of the images, where the guidance commands are supplied to a flight control computer.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates generally to the field of aviation, and more particularly to the field of automatic landing systems. Background technique [0002] The landing phase is a critical phase in the flight of an aircraft because most incidents and accidents occur during this phase. To facilitate the task of the pilot, many automatic landing systems have been proposed. In particular, ILS (Instrument Landing Systems) fitted to high-capacity passenger aircraft are known and ground infrastructures for which exist at international airports. In some European airports MLS (Microwave Landing System) is also available. These systems use radio or microwave signals to guide the aircraft during the approach phase of the aircraft not only in a transverse direction with respect to the axis of the runway, but also in a vertical direction with respect to the glideslope. However, these systems have the disadvantage of not being available in all airports, nota...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, this system only works when the aircraft is a few meters above the ground and makes it impossible to guide the aircraft during the entire final approach phase, ie during the last approximately 10 kilometers

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