Onboard Flight Plan Regeneration for Sonic Boom Minimization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Supersonic vehicles face challenges in minimizing sonic booms due to changes in weather and terrain, which can exceed permissible threshold boom values, requiring quick adjustments to flight plans to avoid damage and noise disturbances, especially when communication with ground systems is unreliable.
Innovation Solution
A navigation system on board the vehicle receives speed, altitude, and flight path data, including boom footprints, to generate adjustments to speed, altitude, and heading within a predetermined distance and time, ensuring that sonic booms do not exceed permissible limits by regenerating the flight plan based on these adjustments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If flight plan adjustments are made by communicating with ground-based flight management systems, then flight plan regeneration can be performed with comprehensive data processing, but communication delays and potential failures occur, reducing responsiveness to changing weather and terrain conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The aircraft's flight management system performs flight plan regeneration autonomously using onboard sensors and pre-stored geographic data, eliminating dependence on ground-based systems. The system independently processes weather and terrain information to adjust flight parameters, ensuring continuous operation even when ground communication is unavailable.
Solution Approach 2:
Geographic feature data, including terrain and weather information, is pre-loaded into the aircraft's flight management system before flight. This allows the system to quickly reference and process this data during flight without requiring real-time ground communication, enabling rapid flight plan adjustments when conditions change.
2Object-generated harmful factors
If the aircraft cruises at higher altitudes to reduce sonic boom intensity, then boom values decrease, but flight time increases and fuel consumption rises
Solution Approach 1:
The flight management system dynamically adjusts altitude based on real-time weather conditions, geographic features, and predicted boom values. Rather than maintaining a fixed high altitude, the system optimizes altitude continuously along the flight path, climbing when necessary to reduce booms and descending when conditions permit, thereby minimizing both sonic boom intensity and total flight time.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes flight parameters (altitude, speed, heading) in response to varying atmospheric conditions. By adjusting these parameters dynamically based on pre-stored geographic data and current weather information, the system achieves effective boom management without the penalty of consistently high-altitude cruising.
3Object-generated harmful factors
If the aircraft performs maneuvers such as pushovers or S-turns to minimize sonic booms, then boom values are reduced, but the complexity of flight control increases
Solution Approach 1:
The flight management system incorporates feedback loops that continuously monitor predicted boom values, actual atmospheric conditions, and aircraft performance. This feedback enables the system to automatically adjust flight parameters and execute maneuvers only when necessary, reducing unnecessary control complexity while maintaining effective boom management.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically determines the appropriate level of maneuver complexity based on current flight conditions. Simple parameter adjustments are made when sufficient, while more complex maneuvers are automatically executed only when required by weather or terrain conditions, optimizing the balance between boom reduction and control system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are methods, systems, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium for regenerating at least a portion of a flight plan of a vehicle. The method may include generating an adjustment to a speed, an altitude, and/or a heading for one or more locations along a flight path within at least one of a predetermined distance of the vehicle and a predetermined window of time, based on received speed data, altitude data, and flight path data, including a subset of points along each boom footprint included in the flight path data, and a permissible threshold boom value for each of the one or more locations. The method may also include regenerating a portion of a flight plan corresponding to the one or more locations, based on the generated adjustment to the speed, altitude, and/or heading for the one or more locations.