Aircraft Flight Envelope Protection Using Predictive Threat Trajectories
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional aircraft flight envelope protection systems operate in a piecemeal fashion, lacking interoperability and failing to provide comprehensive protection against a wide range of hazards, particularly during take-off, landing, and in non-nominal conditions, due to reliance on precomputed 'rules of thumb' that degrade in markedly different scenarios.
Innovation Solution
A predictive aircraft flight envelope protection system using a kinematic-energy model that calculates multiple trajectories to assess and mitigate threats, employing a threat envelope data structure to parameterize various hazards and initiate recovery actions automatically when viable trajectories are depleted, ensuring full-envelope protection and reducing false alarms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional piecemeal protection systems are used, then each system can protect against specific individual hazards, but the overall system lacks interoperability and fails to provide comprehensive protection across all flight conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple disparate protection systems (low-speed protection, overspeed protection, ground proximity warning) into a single integrated flight envelope protection system. This unified system uses a common schema to represent all hazards and coordinates their responses, eliminating the interoperability problems of conventional piecemeal systems while maintaining comprehensive protection coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal protection system that handles multiple types of hazards (speed limits, terrain collision, in-air collision) through a single multi-functional framework. The system uses a common hazard representation schema and unified response coordination mechanism that works across all flight conditions, replacing multiple specialized systems with one versatile system.
2Ease of operation
If precomputed rules of thumb are used for hazard assessment, then the system operates simply under nominal conditions, but performance degrades in markedly different scenarios such as take-off, landing, and non-nominal conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces static precomputed rules with dynamic real-time assessment. The system continuously evaluates current flight parameters (speed, altitude, vertical speed) against hazard thresholds and computes responses based on current aircraft state and environmental conditions. This dynamic approach allows the system to adapt to non-nominal conditions such as take-off, landing, and unusual flight attitudes where precomputed rules fail.
3Measurement precision
If conventional ground proximity warning systems use radio altimeter altitude and rate of change, then the alert timing is accurate under nominal conditions, but the system fails when terrain slope changes or climb performance is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms that continuously monitor aircraft state (speed, altitude, vertical speed, engine performance) and environmental conditions (terrain profile, wind) to adjust alert timing and response parameters. The system uses real-time feedback to recalculate safe climb trajectories and alert thresholds based on current performance capabilities, rather than relying on fixed precomputed values that assume nominal conditions.
4Loss of information
If conventional systems are disabled for landing, then false alarms are reduced during approach, but flight envelope protection is lost during the critical landing phase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent maintains protection systems active during landing by dynamically adjusting their parameters rather than disabling them. The system adapts its hazard thresholds and response criteria based on the landing phase, allowing it to provide appropriate protection during approach and landing without generating false alarms, thus eliminating the need to disable protection systems entirely.
Data Source
AI summary
The aircraft threat envelope protection system employs a threat envelope data structure in a computer-readable medium that stores at least one trigger condition for each of a plurality of different types of threats associated with the aircraft, and modeled using a common schema. A processor computes plural different projected trajectories representing different possible aircraft paths through spacetime. The processor associates at least some of the plurality of the threats to specific trigger points in spacetime along each of the projected trajectories. The processor will deprecate ones of the projected trajectories when they are deemed not viable to recover from a threat. The processor initiates an aircraft protective response when all projected trajectories but one have been deprecated and the aircraft is within a predetermined proximity to the closest trigger point in spacetime along the non-deprecated trajectory.