Aircraft Autoland Destination Scoring and Obstacle-Aware Routing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current integrated avionics systems lack the capability to land an aircraft without pilot intervention, even in emergency situations, despite providing advanced navigation and control functionalities.
Innovation Solution
An autoland system that includes a processor and memory to identify potential destinations, calculate merits, receive terrain and obstacle data, and create routes for landing, allowing the aircraft to autonomously traverse and land without pilot intervention by actuating engines or control columns.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If integrated avionics systems provide advanced navigation and control functionalities, then the system capability is improved, but the system cannot land the aircraft without pilot intervention
Solution Approach 1:
The avionics system performs self-service by automatically selecting destinations, calculating merits, receiving terrain data, creating routes, and controlling aircraft systems to complete the landing process without pilot intervention, enabling the system to serve itself in emergency situations
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-identifying multiple potential destinations, pre-calculating merit values for each destination, and pre-receiving terrain and obstacle data before the actual landing is required, allowing rapid autonomous decision-making when needed
2Extent of automation
If the aircraft autonomously selects destinations and creates routes, then the extent of automation is improved, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The autonomous landing function is segmented into distinct modular components: destination identification module, merit calculation module, terrain data reception module, route creation module, and aircraft control module. Each module handles a specific task, making the complex system manageable and maintainable while achieving high automation
3Reliability
If the system calculates merit for each potential destination, then the landing safety is improved, but the processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system calculates merit values for multiple potential destinations simultaneously rather than sequentially evaluating one at a time. By performing partial calculations in parallel for several destinations and selecting the optimal one, the system achieves thorough safety evaluation without excessive time loss
Data Source
AI summary
Autoland systems and processes for landing an aircraft without pilot intervention are described. In implementations, the autoland system includes a memory operable to store one or more modules and at least one processor coupled to the memory. The processor is operable to execute the one or more modules to identify a plurality of potential destinations for an aircraft. The processor can also calculate a merit for each potential destination identified, select a destination based upon the merit; receive terrain data and/or obstacle data, the including terrain characteristic(s) and/or obstacle characteristic(s); and create a route from a current position of the aircraft to an approach fix associated with the destination, the route accounting for the terrain characteristic(s) and/or obstacle characteristic(s). The processor can also cause the aircraft to traverse the route, and cause the aircraft to land at the destination without requiring pilot intervention.