Aircraft Navigation Using Visual Landmarks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Aircraft navigation systems face challenges when global positioning system (GPS) signals are disrupted by environmental or man-made interference, leading to inaccurate position determination, which can hinder safe operation, especially in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that rely heavily on continuous GPS contact.
Innovation Solution
An aircraft navigation system comprising a sensor system, landmark detector, position calculator, and guidance system that generates images of the environment, identifies landmarks, determines their bearings and locations, and estimates the aircraft's position using these landmarks and state information to guide the aircraft to a target location, even when GPS signals are unreliable.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If GPS receiver is used to determine aircraft position, then navigation accuracy is improved, but reliability deteriorates when GPS signals are disrupted by environmental or man-made interference
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes the measurement parameters from GPS satellite signals to visual landmarks and bearings. By detecting landmarks through image processing and calculating bearings to multiple landmarks, the system determines aircraft position using different physical parameters that are not susceptible to GPS interference, thereby maintaining reliability while achieving acceptable position accuracy
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces visual landmarks as intermediary objects between the aircraft and the navigation function. Instead of directly receiving position information from GPS satellites, the aircraft uses landmarks in the environment as intermediate reference points to indirectly determine its position, creating a alternative navigation pathway that bypasses GPS signal disruption
2Reliability
If visual navigation is used to determine aircraft position, then reliability is improved during GPS outages, but measurement precision deteriorates and pilot workload increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces the manual visual navigation process with an automated computer vision system. The sensor system captures images, the landmark detector automatically identifies landmarks, and the position calculator computes aircraft position based on landmark bearings. This substitution maintains reliability during GPS outages while improving measurement precision through automated calculation and reducing pilot workload by eliminating manual visual navigation tasks
3Productivity
If automated landmark-based navigation system is implemented, then productivity is improved by reducing pilot workload, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses a sensor system that can serve multiple functions: capturing images for landmark detection, determining aircraft position, and providing visual information for navigation. By making the sensor system multi-functional, the patent reduces the need for separate dedicated components, thereby managing device complexity while achieving automated navigation that improves pilot productivity
Data Source
AI summary
A method, an apparatus, system, and computer program product for navigating an aircraft. Information indicative of a result of a scan of an environment around the aircraft is received by a computer system for landmarks. Bearings of the landmarks and locations of the landmarks are determined by the computer system. A current position of the aircraft is estimated by the computer system using the bearings of the landmarks and the locations of the landmarks. A set of actions to be performed is determined to guide the aircraft based on the current position of the aircraft is performed by the computer system.