Flight Assistant for Emergency Landing Site Selection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Pilots face significant workload and decision-making challenges during emergency situations due to the need to process vast amounts of dynamic data, often with incomplete or inaccurate information, especially when dealing with engine failures or other critical system malfunctions, which can lead to increased risk of accidents and loss of life or property.
Innovation Solution
A system and apparatus that continuously monitors and processes multiple flight parameters to assist pilots by categorizing emergencies and providing alerts for available landing options, using a database of aircraft and pilot performance data, terrain, weather, and other factors to suggest the best course of action, and can either guide the pilot or autopilot in executing a safe landing procedure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the pilot processes all available flight data manually during an emergency, then the pilot can make informed decisions, but the decision-making time increases and workload increases
Solution Approach 1:
The flight management system acts as an intermediary between the raw flight data and the pilot, automatically processing and analyzing multiple flight parameters to generate emergency assessments and landing site recommendations, thereby reducing the time and cognitive load on the pilot while maintaining accurate decision-making
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs self-service by automatically monitoring flight conditions, detecting emergencies, evaluating landing sites, and presenting optimized recommendations to the pilot, eliminating the need for the pilot to manually process all flight data while still providing accurate emergency assessments
2Reliability
If the system provides comprehensive emergency information and landing options, then the pilot can make better decisions, but the information processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the complex emergency information into hierarchical categories (emergency detection, landing site evaluation, recommended actions) and presents them in a structured format, reducing the perceived complexity for the pilot while maintaining comprehensive and reliable emergency response capabilities
3Reliability
If the pilot considers multiple landing site options with different services and conditions, then the safest landing can be identified, but the time required to evaluate options increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary evaluation of multiple landing sites in advance, pre-processing terrain data, weather conditions, and airport services to quickly present optimized recommendations when an emergency is detected, thereby ensuring safe landing identification without increasing real-time option evaluation time
Data Source
AI summary
A system and apparatus assists pilots and flight crews in determining the best course of action at any particular point inflight for any category of emergency. The system monitors a plurality of static and dynamic flight parameters including atmospheric conditions along the flight path, ground conditions and terrain, conditions aboard the aircraft, and pilot/crew data. Based on these parameters, the system may provide continually updated information to the pilot or crew about the best available landing sites or recommend solutions to aircraft configuration errors. In case of emergency, the system may provide the pilot with procedure sets associated with a hierarchy of available emergency landing sites (or execute these procedure sets via the autopilot system) depending on the specific nature of the emergency.