Electronical device, and method, for automatically determining piloting information of a mobile machine accompanying a leader mobile machine, associated computer program

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11435763-B2
Application number	US-201916700790-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 2, 2019
Priority date	Dec 4, 2018
Publication date	Sep 6, 2022
Grant date	Sep 6, 2022

Abstract

Automatic flight information determination device for automatically determining flight control information for an accompanying mobile machine accompanying a leader mobile machine, said device being adapted for collecting the location data of the leader mobile machine from among the actual location data derived from measurements relating to the current location of the leader mobile machine and the current trajectory data of the accompanying mobile machine, and of determining, on the basis of said location data collected, the information items for piloting the accompanying mobile machine as a function of a set of at least two values to be adhered to with respect to the location defined by the data collected, said values to be adhered to being representative of the values included among: a minimum vertical/flight level separation value, a minimum longitudinal/along track separation value, and a minimum lateral/between tracks separation value.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An accompanying mobile machine accompanying a leader mobile machine that includes an electronic flight information determination device for determining piloting information comprising piloting indications for piloting the accompanying mobile machine following the leader mobile machine and deviations in position between a current position of said leader mobile machine and a current position of said accompanying mobile machine, wherein said device is adapted for collecting location data of the leader mobile machine from among actual location data derived from measurements relating to a current location of the leader mobile machine and target trajectory data of the leader mobile machine, and for determining, on the basis of said location data collected, piloting information for piloting the accompanying mobile machine as a function of a set of at least two values to be adhered to with respect to the location defined by the data collected, said values to be adhered to being representative of at least two values among a minimum vertical/flight level separation value, a minimum longitudinal/along track separation value and a minimum lateral/between tracks separation value,
the accompanying mobile machine in addition comprising either:
an automatic, semi-automatic or assisted piloting module, which is adapted for automatically piloting the said machine based on said indications, or
a human-machine interface adapted to display the deviations in position between the current position of said leader mobile machine and between the current position of said accompanying mobile machine,
wherein the electronic flight information determination device for determining piloting information, when determining piloting information, is adapted for selecting a calculation method among different calculation methods,
the electronic flight information device being adapted for selecting a first calculation method if the target trajectory data of the leader mobile machine is present among the most recently collected data and if the actual location data is absent among the most recently collected data, or selecting at least one other calculation method if the target trajectory data of the leader mobile machine is absent among the most recently collected data and if the actual location data is present among the most recently collected data.

2. The accompanying mobile machine according to claim 1 , that is adapted for determining, in relation to each of at least two dimensions among the longitudinal, vertical and lateral dimensions associated with said at least two values to be adhered to, the piloting information, by selecting for each dimension independently, from among different calculation methods, the calculation method for calculating the piloting information in relation to said dimension, based on the presence or absence, for said dimension, of said actual location data derived from measurements relating to the current location of the leader mobile machine or said data relating to the target trajectory of the leader mobile machine.

3. The accompanying mobile machine according to claim 1 , adapted for selecting a formation flight mode from among a plurality of formation flight modes each associated with a different set of values to be adhered to, said device being adapted for modifying, based on said actual location data or target trajectory, said formation flight mode, on the basis of:
in the most recent data collected, the presence or absence of data extracted from a target trajectory and the presence or absence of actual location data derived from measurements relating to the current location of the leader mobile machine; or
the comparison between an accuracy of the actual location data derived from measurements relating to the current location of the leader mobile machine and the minimum separation values from the set of all minimum separation values.

4. The accompanying mobile machine according to claim 1 , adapted for comparing, among the data collected, the actual location data derived from measurements relating to the current location of the leader mobile machine and the data relating to the target trajectory of the leader mobile machine, detecting a situation of the trajectory not being followed in case of deviation greater than a pre-determined threshold.

5. The accompanying mobile machine according to claim 1 , wherein said values to be adhered to are values from among a time derivative of a minimum vertical/flight level separation value, a time derivative of a minimum longitudinal/along track separation value, and a time derivative of a minimum lateral/between tracks separation value.

6. A flight information determination method for determining flight control information for an accompanying mobile machine of a leader mobile machine from among piloting indications and deviations in position between a current position of said leader mobile machine and a current position of said accompanying mobile machine,
said method comprising the steps operationally executed by an electronic information processing module, the steps comprising:
collecting location data of the leader mobile machine, from among an actual location data derived from measurements relating to a current location of the leader mobile machine and target trajectory data of the leader mobile machine; and
determining, based on said location data collected, the piloting information items for the accompanying mobile machine as a function of a set of at least two values to be adhered to with respect to the location defined by the data collected, said values to be adhered to being representative of at least two of: a minimum vertical/flight level separation value, a minimum longitudinal/along track separation value, and a minimum lateral/between tracks separation value, and at least among:
automatically piloting said machine based on said indications, or
displaying said deviations on a human-machine interface,
wherein, the flight information determination method comprises a selection step, during the determination of the piloting information, for selecting a calculation method from among different calculation methods, said selection comprising:
selecting a first calculation method if the target trajectory data of the leader mobile machine is present among the most recently collected data and if the actual location data is absent among the most recently collected data, or
selecting at least one other calculation method if the target trajectory data of the leader mobile machine is absent among the most recently collected data and if the actual location data is present among the most recently collected data.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable medium including a computer program comprising of software instructions which, when executed by a computer, operationally implement a method according to claim 6 .

Assignees

• Thales Sa

Inventors

• Roger Michel
• De Jaureguiberry Adrien
• Deker Guy

Classifications

• B64U2201/102

  adapted for flying in formations · CPC title

• B64C39/024

  of the remote controlled vehicle type, i.e. RPV · CPC title

• G05D1/104 Primary

  involving a plurality of aircrafts, e.g. formation flying (traffic control systems for aircraft G08G5/00) · CPC title

• B64C2201/143

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• B64U10/25

  Fixed-wing aircraft (VTOL aircraft B64U10/20) · CPC title