Aircraft Collision Avoidance with Contextual Obstacle Routing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current collision avoidance systems for autonomous and remotely controlled aircraft fail to consider ground obstacles, prohibited airspaces, weather, and dense population centers, inadequately providing collision avoidance.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that receives multiple streams of potential conflict information, including contextual obstacles, calculates alternate flight paths, and selects the path with the lowest collision priority, considering safety parameter values and hierarchical lists to avoid collisions with obstacles.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If current collision avoidance systems only consider direct obstacles on flight path, then system complexity is reduced, but collision avoidance reliability is insufficient for autonomous and remotely controlled aircraft
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments obstacles into two categories: direct obstacles on the flight path and contextual obstacles within a perimeter of the flight path. This segmentation allows the system to comprehensively consider both types of obstacles without overwhelming complexity, improving collision avoidance reliability by addressing both immediate and potential future conflicts.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary conflict detection by calculating predicted miss distances for both direct and contextual obstacles before the aircraft reaches them. By identifying potential conflicts in advance and calculating alternate flight paths proactively, the system ensures reliable collision avoidance while maintaining manageable complexity through early intervention.
2Reliability
If multiple streams of conflict information including contextual obstacles are considered, then collision avoidance reliability is improved, but information processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments conflict information into multiple streams: direct obstacle data and contextual obstacle data. Each stream is processed separately with appropriate algorithms, then integrated to form a comprehensive conflict picture. This segmentation improves reliability by ensuring no obstacle type is overlooked while managing information processing complexity through modular processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies different processing qualities to different types of obstacle data. Direct obstacles receive immediate, high-priority processing with strict safety parameters, while contextual obstacles receive processed attention based on their proximity and potential risk. This local quality approach ensures reliable collision avoidance for critical threats while efficiently managing processing resources.
3Reliability
If alternate flight paths are calculated and selected based on safety parameter values, then collision avoidance reliability is improved, but flight time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system calculates multiple alternate flight paths in advance, before a collision threat becomes immediate. By pre-computing safe diversion routes and assigning safety parameter values to each option, the system ensures reliable collision avoidance while minimizing flight time delays, as the selection process can proceed efficiently when threats are detected early.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses safety parameter values as a quantitative metric to evaluate and compare alternate flight paths. By changing the evaluation criteria from qualitative assessment to quantitative parameter comparison, the system can quickly select the optimal path that maximizes safety while minimizing deviation from the original flight plan, thus reducing time loss.
Data Source
AI summary
Example implementations are directed to a method and system for collision avoidance for an aircraft traversing a flight path. The method and system described herein provides an architecture to address the full gamut of complexity that arises when dealing with possible conflicts during aircraft flight. The collision avoidance method and system disclosed herein first receives multiple streams of potential conflict information that not only considers direct obstacles on the flight path of the aircraft, but also considers contextual obstacles that are within a perimeter of the flight path. Once the possible objects are considered, a plurality of alternate flight paths are calculated and the alternate flight path with an acceptable miss distance with a possible obstacle (and minimized deviation from the original flight path) is selected and the aircraft traversing the flight path deviates from the original flight path to the alternate flight path to avoid the collision(s).