Flight Safety Monitor Using 4D Occupancy Overlap Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional offline verification methods struggle to increase confidence in autonomous systems, particularly in aerospace applications, due to the complexity of algorithms used in autonomous planning functions, making it difficult to certify systems that employ non-standard algorithms like AI and ML, which are beneficial but harder to certify.
Innovation Solution
A safety monitor that verifies flight plans separately from their generation, allowing the use of non-standard algorithms, and accounts for uncertainties in aircraft and hazard positions and predictions, using 4D volumes to assess safety by determining if aircraft and hazard occupancy regions overlap, ensuring compliance with safety requirements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional flight planning algorithms are used, then the flight plan can be certified as safe, but the system lacks adaptability to use non-standard algorithms like AI and ML
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a safety monitor as an intermediary component that separates flight plan generation from safety verification. The safety monitor independently checks whether the executed flight plan adheres to safety constraints, allowing nonstandard algorithms to generate flight plans while maintaining certification confidence through separate verification.
2Reliability
If offline verification methods are used, then traditional systems can be verified, but they struggle to increase confidence in autonomous systems with complex algorithms
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the flight planning system into distinct functional components: flight plan generation (handled by autonomous algorithms) and safety verification (handled by the safety monitor). This segmentation allows each component to be optimized independently, with the safety monitor focusing specifically on verification tasks regardless of the complexity of the generation algorithms.
Solution Approach 2:
The safety monitor acts as an intermediary verification layer that operates independently from the complex autonomous algorithms. It receives the generated flight plan and separately verifies safety constraints, providing confidence in the system without requiring the verification method to match the algorithm complexity.
3Reliability
If flight plans are generated without separate verification, then the process is simpler, but safety cannot be ensured against dynamic hazards
Solution Approach 1:
The safety monitor performs preliminary verification of flight plans before execution. It checks whether the generated flight plan adheres to safety constraints and identifies potential conflicts with hazards in advance, allowing corrections to be made before the aircraft begins flight operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where the safety monitor continuously monitors flight plan execution and provides information back to the flight planning system. This feedback loop enables iterative improvement and correction of flight plans to ensure ongoing safety compliance.
Data Source
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AI summary
A safety monitor arranged to: receive a flight plan comprising a plurality of waypoints for an aircraft to follow on a flight mission; receive hazard data corresponding to one or more hazards; generate an aircraft occupancy region comprising a four-dimensional volume corresponding to a range of possible spatial and temporal coordinates for the aircraft along the flight plan; generate a hazard occupancy region comprising a four-dimensional volume corresponding to a range of possible spatial and temporal coordinates associated with the one or more hazards; and determine whether there is an overlap between the four-dimensional volume of the aircraft occupancy region and the hazard occupancy region.