UAV Flight Path Selection Using Virtual Paths and Envelope Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) face challenges in maintaining safe flight paths due to changes in flight environments, low ground undulation precision, and potential collisions with unspecified aircraft or obstacles, leading to stalling or collision risks.
Innovation Solution
A flight control system that sets multiple virtual paths around the current path, evaluates envelope protection and mission achievement degree, and determines a safe path to ensure stable flight, using a central controller with virtual path setting, evaluation, and flight control units to manage flight orientation and velocity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a single predetermined flight path is used for UAV navigation, then the flight control system is simple to implement, but the UAV is vulnerable to stalling and collisions when environmental conditions change
Solution Approach 1:
The flight path is segmented into multiple virtual paths (current path and candidate paths) instead of using a single predetermined path. The flight control system evaluates each path segment independently based on envelope protection criteria, allowing the UAV to switch between segments when environmental conditions change, thereby improving reliability without requiring a complete redesign of the control system
Solution Approach 2:
Candidate flight paths are pre-calculated and stored before the UAV begins flight. These virtual paths are prepared in advance based on the geographic information and potential environmental variations, so that when the UAV needs to avoid obstacles or changing conditions, it can immediately switch to a pre-evaluated candidate path without complex real-time calculations
2Reliability
If multiple virtual paths are evaluated for envelope protection, then the UAV can avoid stalling and collisions, but the computational load and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system evaluates multiple virtual paths for envelope protection, but not all possible paths are assessed in full detail simultaneously. Instead, the system performs partial evaluations on candidate paths and only conducts comprehensive evaluation on the most promising options, reducing computational load while maintaining adequate protection against stalling and collisions
Solution Approach 2:
Envelope protection criteria and path evaluation metrics are pre-established before flight. Candidate paths are pre-generated based on the flight mission and geographic data, so that during actual flight, the system only needs to compare current conditions against pre-computed path evaluations rather than calculating everything from scratch in real-time
Data Source
AI summary
There is provided a flight control system including a virtual path setting unit, a first evaluation unit, a path determination unit, and a flight controller. The virtual path setting unit is configured to set a plurality of virtual paths other than a current path of an aircraft at a prescribed timing. The first evaluation unit is configured to evaluate envelope protection of each of the current path and the plurality of virtual paths. The path determination unit is configured to determine a path among the current path and the plurality of virtual paths, based on an evaluation result of the envelope protection. The flight controller is configured to control flight of the aircraft based on the determined path.