Recovery Autopilot Trajectory Prediction for Flight Envelope Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional aircraft flight envelope protection systems are limited in providing comprehensive protection, especially during landing phases, as they are often disabled, leading to a loss of flight envelope protection and potential risks of damage or loss of control.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a Trajectory Prediction Algorithm (TPA) and Recovery Autopilot system that models potential aircraft trajectories, tests them against aircraft limits and terrain clearance, and triggers recovery maneuvers to avoid impending violations or conflicts, while maintaining continuous flight envelope protection throughout all phases, including landing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If conventional flight envelope protection systems are disabled for landing, then ease of operation is improved, but reliability deteriorates due to loss of flight envelope protection
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary evaluation of multiple potential aircraft paths and their associated flight conditions before actual flight maneuvers are executed. By pre-calculating trajectories and assessing limit violations in advance, the system maintains protection capabilities during landing without requiring pilot intervention to enable/disable systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors current flight conditions and compares them against predicted conditions along multiple potential paths. This closed-loop feedback mechanism allows the system to adaptively maintain flight envelope protection during landing by evaluating actual conditions against pre-computed trajectories and triggering appropriate recovery actions when limits are approached.
2Reliability
If multiple trajectory evaluations are performed, then reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the flight envelope evaluation into distinct modules: trajectory generation, flight condition estimation, limit comparison, and recovery determination. Each module handles a specific aspect of the evaluation, allowing complex multi-trajectory analysis to be performed through coordinated operation of simpler, specialized components rather than a monolithic complex system.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and vehicle are provided. A vehicle system for a vehicle includes: a trajectory selection module configured to select a potential vehicle path relative to a current vehicle movement condition; a trajectory movement condition module configured to estimate a modeled movement condition of the vehicle along the potential vehicle path; a limit comparison module configured to determine whether the modeled movement condition violates vehicle limits; and a violation indicator module configured to generate an indication of impending violation.