Aircraft Trajectory Wind Correction Using Precomputed Air-Mass Offsets
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for predicting aircraft trajectories require computationally intense trigonometric functions to account for wind effects, which is burdensome for onboard calculations, especially for high-resolution and multiple trajectory modeling.
Innovation Solution
An avionics system that generates wind-independent and wind-corrected positions of an aircraft along a potential trajectory by calculating lateral and longitudinal components of the moving air mass, allowing for efficient computation by precalculating wind effects and adding them to subsequent position calculations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If complex trigonometric functions are used to calculate wind effects on aircraft trajectory, then measurement precision of aircraft position is improved, but device complexity and computational burden increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the wind effect calculation into two independent components: lateral offset and longitudinal offset. Instead of using complex trigonometric functions to calculate wind effects at each trajectory point, the method calculates lateral and longitudinal components separately and applies them independently to each position along the trajectory. This segmentation simplifies the computational approach while maintaining accuracy in predicting aircraft position受wind effects.
2Measurement precision
If high resolution and multiple trajectory modeling are performed, then measurement precision of aircraft performance prediction is improved, but productivity and computational speed decrease
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by calculating the lateral and longitudinal wind offset components once based on the predicted trajectory, and then reusing these pre-calculated components for multiple trajectory evaluations. This allows high-resolution and multiple trajectory modeling to be performed efficiently, as the wind effect components are computed in advance and applied repeatedly without requiring recalculation for each trajectory variant, thus improving computational speed while maintaining prediction accuracy.
Data Source
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AI summary
Systems, aircraft, and non-transitory media are provided. An avionics system for an aircraft includes a storage device and one or more data processors. The storage device stores instructions for monitoring an actual performance of the aircraft. The one or more data processors are configured to execute the instructions to: generate a lateral component and a longitudinal component of a measured moving air mass relative to the aircraft; generate a plurality of wind independent positions of the aircraft along a potential aircraft trajectory based on a prediction model; and generate a plurality of wind corrected positions of the aircraft based on the plurality of wind independent positions, on the lateral component, and on the longitudinal component.