Decision-making aid for revising a flight plan

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11017677-B2
Application number	US-201715700156-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 10, 2017
Priority date	Sep 13, 2016
Publication date	May 25, 2021
Grant date	May 25, 2021

Abstract

A method is provided for managing the revising of a flight plan of an aircraft implemented by at least two systems, one being of avionics type (qualified, certified) and the other not. From a flight plan, flight plan revisions are determined, even assessed, then one or more of these revisions are selected and/or combined. Subsequently, these combinations are processed by the avionics system and the corresponding avionics parameters are calculated. By comparing the different results of avionics quality, the impact of each revision can be quantified then rendered to the pilot to assist in his or her decision-making, in particular with regard to negotiating the revisions with air traffic control. Combinatorial optimization and learning steps are described, as are system and software aspects.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for managing revision of a flight plan of an aircraft implemented by at least two systems, a first of the systems being a flight management system (FMS) of avionics type and a second of the systems interacting with the first system being of non-avionics type, the method comprising:
receiving a flight plan associated with N constraints;
in the second, non-avionics system, determining a plurality of revisions of the flight plan received, each revision being associated with up to said N constraints;
in the first, avionics system, determining avionics parameters corresponding to revised flight plans associated with different combinations of the determined revisions each combination of revisions leading to the association of a revised flight plan with N−k constraints among said N constraints, k varying from 1 to N−1; and
in the second, non-avionics system, comparing the determined avionics parameters and assessing an impact of at least one revision of the flight plan,
wherein a machine learning model is used to determine at least one combination of the determined revisions that reduces negotiation time, with an air traffic control (ATC) authority, by an amount that satisfies a criterion, said machine learning model being trained using a historical database comprising previously performed revisions of flight plans associated with negotiation times;
said method further comprising using said machine learning model to predict, respectively for a plurality of zones of the flight plan, a plurality of local scores estimating the impact of each zone on the negotiation time.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein at least one of the combinations is determined as a function of predefined criteria.

3. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
quantifying and displaying an impact of a revision of the received flight plan.

4. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a selection of one revised flight plan out of several, the selected flight plan comprising a particular combination of revisions.

5. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
sending to the ATC authority a request to authorize flying a flight plan associated with a particular combination of revisions.

6. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
inserting a selected and/or authorized flight plan into the first system.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a number of constraints of the flight plans is progressively decremented.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a number of constraints of the flight plans is progressively decremented, in a predefined order as to a nature of the constraints.

9. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
assessing an impact of a previously selected constraint.

10. A non-transitory, computer-readable memory comprising instructions making it possible to perform the method according to claim 1 , when said instructions are executed on a computer.

11. A system for implementing the method according to claim 1 , comprising an FMS of avionics type.

12. The system according to claim 11 , further comprising:
a non-avionics system of electronic flight bag (EFB) type, or a digital tablet or an aircraft operations center (AOC)/ATC equipment item.

Assignees

• Thales Sa

Inventors

• Martinez Dorian
• Bies Emilie

Classifications

• G08G5/55

  for a single aircraft · CPC title

• G08G5/53

  for cruising · CPC title

• G08G5/50

  Navigation or guidance aids · CPC title

• G08G5/26

  Transmission of traffic-related information between aircraft and ground stations · CPC title

• G08G5/22

  located on the ground · CPC title