JPH0861974A - Flight plane evaluating and producing device mounted on aeroplane - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To carry out the evaluation of a flight during the flight, and the production of a new flight plan automatically on aeroplane, and to select the navigation suitable to the occasion by emergency measures, by providing a computer for navigation, a meterological means, a flight plan evaluating means, and a flight plan producing means. CONSTITUTION: In an aeroplane in the flying condition, a computer A for navigation produces a flight item data depending on the detecting signals from various sensors and the like, and a meterological data producing means C produces a meterological condition data depending on the radar image data. Furthermore, a flight plan evaluating means D evaluates whether the actual flight is progressing as initially planed or not depending on the flight item data and meterological condition data. And when the flight is not progressing as initially planed in the evaluation, a flight plan producing means E produces a new flight plan depending on the flight item data and the meterological condition data, and it is displayed together with the evaluating result of the initial flight plan, on a comprehensive display device F.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a device for generating a flight plan of an aircraft, and in particular, it is mounted on an aircraft that automatically evaluates the current flight and generates a new flight plan in real time during flight. The present invention relates to a flight plan evaluation generator.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a ground management type flight planning system using a computer has been developed in order to simplify the planning of an optimum flight route of an aircraft (for example, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 61-273700). .

This flight planning system has a database that stores performance data of aircraft, way points, general weather conditions, airport positions, knowledge data for generating an optimal flight plan, and the like. The database is processed by a host computer installed on the ground to generate a flight plan for each aircraft.

That is, the operator or pilot starts up the system to generate a flight plan based on weather information and navigation data.

The contents of the generated flight plan are printed out, and while referring to the contents, the pilot manually manually inputs again via the control / display unit (CDU) of the aircraft, or the contents are recorded on a floppy disk. It is magnetically fixed to an information recording medium such as the above, the information recording medium is brought to the aircraft, the magnetic information is read into the DTU mounted on the aircraft, and stored in the data management device of the aircraft or the navigation computer. I am letting you.

[0006]

However, the conventional flight planning system is of the ground management type, and the monitoring of the flight plan during flight is entirely left to the pilot. For this reason, there is a risk of causing human error such as not being aware that the actual flight deviates from the flight plan due to the illusion or distraction of the pilot.

[0007] Further, in the event of a change in flight conditions such as a change in weather during flight or a failure of the aircraft, or an inability to use the intended landing airport, a cause that hinders the realization of the original flight plan occurs. It becomes necessary to change the flight plan.

However, since the aircraft is not equipped with a flight planning system capable of making such changes, the pilot himself re-plans during the flight, or re-plans the host computer on the ground. Request and receive the result.

That is, when the replanning is performed manually, it takes a long time to perform the replanning, which makes it difficult to respond in an emergency and causes a human error. Also, when requesting re-planning from the ground host computer, the re-planning can be performed in less time than the time required for manual re-planning, but it cannot be used if there is an abnormality in the communication system. There are drawbacks.

The present invention eliminates human factors from the evaluation of a flight in flight and the generation of a new flight plan, and automatically generates a new flight plan in real time on the aircraft to reduce the burden on the pilot. It is an object of the present invention to provide a flight plan evaluation generation device mounted on an aircraft, which can reduce the number of flights and select an appropriate navigation that is flexible and flexible.

[0011]

The constitution of the invention described in claim 1 is as follows. A navigation computer that calculates flight specification data from detection signals from multiple sensors that detect the flight status of an aircraft, a map information generation unit that generates map information, and a weather condition based on radar image data from a weather radar. Weather information generating means for generating data,
Flight plan evaluation means for evaluating whether or not the actual flight is proceeding according to the flight plan based on the flight specification data and the weather condition data, and if the evaluation result is negative, the flight specification data and the map The aircraft has a flight plan generation means for generating a new flight plan based on the information, and a display means for displaying the evaluation result by the flight plan evaluation means and the new flight plan, which are mounted on the aircraft.

Claim 2 based on the configuration of claim 1
The following invention is as follows. According to a second aspect of the present invention, the flight plan evaluation means includes a knowledge base that stores knowledge about a flight plan evaluation method as a database, and an inference processing unit that processes the flight plan based on the knowledge. .

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the flight plan generating means comprises a knowledge base that stores knowledge about flight plan generation as a database, and an inference processing section that generates a flight plan based on the knowledge. .

In the invention described in claim 4, the map information is
It contains topographical data consisting of three-dimensional vectorized altitude data.

According to the invention described in claim 5, in the display means,
The map information generated by the map information generating means and the new flight plan are displayed in a superimposed manner.

In the invention described in claim 6, the flight plan generating means generates a plurality of candidate flight plans.

[0017]

The operation of the present invention described in claim 1 is as follows. In an aircraft in flight, the navigation computer generates flight specification data based on detection signals from each sensor, and the weather information generation means generates weather condition data based on radar image data.

Further, the flight plan evaluation means evaluates whether or not the actual flight is proceeding according to the original flight plan based on the flight specification data and the weather condition data.

When it is evaluated that the flight plan has not progressed according to the original flight plan, the flight plan creating means creates a new flight plan based on the flight specification data and the weather condition data, and creates the new flight plan. It is displayed on the display means together with the evaluation result of the original flight plan.

The operation of the invention described in claim 2 is as follows. The inference processing unit evaluates whether the actual flight is proceeding according to the original flight plan based on the flight specification data and the weather condition data, based on the knowledge about the flight plan evaluation method stored in the knowledge base. .

The operation of the invention described in claim 3 is as follows. The inference processing unit generates a new flight plan based on the flight specification data and the weather condition data based on the knowledge about the generation of the flight plan stored in the knowledge base.

The operation of the invention described in claim 4 is as follows. Since the map information includes topographical data composed of three-dimensional vectorized altitude data, it is possible to add a topographical constraint on altitude to the generation of a new flight plan.

The operation of the invention described in claim 5 is as follows. The display means superimposes and displays the map information generated by the map information generation means and the new flight plan generated by the flight plan generation means.

The operation of the invention described in claim 6 is as follows. The flight plan generation means generates a plurality of candidate flight plans based on the flight specification data and the map information.

[0025]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the device of the present invention.

This device includes a navigation computer A, a data management device B, a weather information generation unit C, a flight plan evaluation unit D, a map information generation unit G, and a flight plan generation unit E.
And an integrated display device F as main means, which are mounted on an aircraft.

The navigation computer A is for calculating flight specification data and the like based on detection signals that are periodically input from various sensors provided in various places of the aircraft. The I / O port includes a barometric altimeter 1, an airspeed meter 2, a rotation detector 3 for detecting the number of revolutions of the engine, a fuel weight meter 4, a fuel flow meter 5, and a GPS for detecting its own coordinate position. (Global Posi
tioning system 6), various sensors such as a weather radar 7 for obtaining radar reflection signals from rain clouds and thunder clouds, and a data management device B and the like are connected.

The flight specification data are optimum flight speed and altitude based on navigation information such as flight conditions, lateral guidance information, predicted coordinate position of the aircraft after a certain time, and the navigation information and the result of analysis of fuel weight. , Calculating the rate of climb, including optimum flight speed according to the flight plan, guidance and control information realized in the flight path, etc.

The data management device B manages and stores the navigation-related information of the aircraft, and its I / O port has the various sensors 1 to 7, the navigation computer A, and the DT.
U8, magnetic disk device 9 for recording flight plans read from this DTU8, VHF transceiver 10
Etc. are connected.

The navigation-related information referred to here is the various sensors 1
7 to 7, output information including flight specification data output from the navigation computer A, all information including information read from the DTU 8 and information received from the VHF transceiver 10.

The flight plan is based on the aircraft registration number,
It consists of running fuel weight, departure airport, destination airport, route standard, maximum allowable fuel, direct operation cost, etc. The initial flight plan has been generated in advance by a flight plan generation device (not shown) installed on the ground before the flight.

The VHF transceiver 10 communicates with a communication center 11 installed on the ground. The information received from the communication center 11 includes airport information, weather around the airport, availability of the airport, etc. It is included.

The DTU 8 is composed of a disk drive unit for reading the recorded data from the floppy disk 12, a drive electronic circuit (neither is shown), etc., and outputs information such as the original flight plan recorded on the floppy disk 12. Is.

That is, the original flight plan calculated before the flight is recorded on the floppy disk 12, and the pilot brings it onto the aircraft and reads it into the DTU 8. The read initial flight plan is transferred to the data management device A and recorded in the magnetic disk device 9, and is also transferred to the navigation computer A and the flight plan evaluation section D as the flight plan evaluation means.

The meteorological information generating section C as a meteorological information generating means is composed of a meteorological radar 7 and a meteorological condition analyzing section 13, and generates meteorological information in the radar coverage area of the meteorological radar 7.

As shown in FIG. 2, the weather condition analysis unit 13 includes an image processing unit 14 for image-processing a radar signal to convert it into a weather echo image, a data analysis unit 15 for generating weather condition data, and a weather condition determination unit. It consists of 16.

The data analysis unit 15 analyzes the intensity of rain and clouds in the target area, the size and shape of clouds from the weather echo image generated by the image processing unit 14, and further, the weather radar 7
When the Doppler excursion of the reflected wave can be detected, the bad air current region is also detected.

The weather analysis section 16 includes a data analysis section 1
In addition to the analysis results from the above, the navigation computer, such as information on the atmospheric pressure, wind power, wind direction, and outside air temperature from the data management device B, update data of weather information from the communication center 11 received by the VHF transceiver 10, etc. The flight specification data from A is input.

Then, the weather condition judging unit 16 analyzes the weather conditions such as the degree of influence on the flight, the atmospheric pressure arrangement, the icing level, the weather forecast, etc. based on these various input data, and the analysis result is obtained. Via the data bus to the flight plan evaluation section D and the integrated display device F as display means.

The flight plan evaluation section D evaluates whether or not the actual flight is proceeding according to the original flight plan generated in advance, based on the navigation-related information including the flight specification data and the weather condition data. As shown in FIG. 3, it comprises a knowledge base 17, an inference processing unit 18, a working memory 19, and an input / output interface 20 with an external circuit such as the navigation computer A.

The knowledge base 17 is a database that records knowledge about the flight plan evaluation method. The knowledge stored here is the evaluation criteria and the criteria for determining the degree of influence when a pilot monitors a flight plan during flight, the evaluation items and conditions for evaluating the feasibility of the flight plan, and their conditions. This is a symbolic representation of the method of measuring the degree of impact on flight and the planning of workarounds, etc.

For example, in a flight plan for establishing a cruise state, the condition that the output of the engine must be 70% or more for the evaluation item of the right engine, and the evaluation item of the hydraulic power pump is There is a condition that it must work properly.

Further, when the output of the right engine cannot be obtained, only the left engine has to carry out one-shot flight, so that the degree of influence on the flight becomes very large.

The conditions for establishing the above flight plan are set for each evaluation item such as fuel consumption, engine output, system conditions such as hydraulic pressure of the power system, icing conditions, meteorological conditions such as thunderclouds, and the like. In addition, the knowledge base 17 is hierarchized and managed for each evaluation item, thereby facilitating creation and updating of the knowledge base 17 by a pilot or an operator.

For example, ailerons and flaps on the right wing,
The spoiler and the like are grouped as a right-wing flight controller, and the right / left-wing flight controllers are grouped as a main-wing flight controller. As a result, items common to the right wing / left wing flight control devices, for example, information such as the hydraulic conditions of the right wing hydraulic power system are managed as the conditions of the main wing flight control device.

The inference processing unit 18 makes an inference based on knowledge such as the evaluation standard and the judgment standard of the influence degree stored in the knowledge base 17, and performs the actual evaluation process.

Regarding the processing operation of the inference processing section 18,
This will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

Step 1 (abbreviated as S1 in the figure. The same applies hereinafter): First, the evaluation conditions from the initial flight plan until it is established are extracted, and the process proceeds to step 2.

Step 2: Based on the evaluation conditions, it is evaluated whether or not the flight according to the original flight plan is being performed, and the process proceeds to step 3. Specifically, based on the evaluation method of each set evaluation item, that is, the monitoring method, whether the flight plan is valid, actually monitors the flight data and weather condition data input for each parameter. By doing.

Step 3: If an evaluation item that does not meet the conditions is extracted, the pilot is notified (step 3 ') and the process proceeds to step 4. If not extracted, the process returns to step 2 to return to the beginning. Evaluate whether the flight is carried out according to the flight plan.

Step 4: The degree of influence is obtained, and the degree of influence is notified to the pilot (step 3 '), and the process proceeds to step 5. Impacts are categorized into emergency, abnormal, normal disability, and advice categories.

Step 5: Based on this influence degree and knowledge about the situation at that time, a countermeasure is planned and
The pilot is notified of this (step 3 ') and the operation proceeds to step 6. The countermeasures include, for example, item information of countermeasures such as thundercloud avoidance and engine one-shot flight, related information such as arrival time, and additional information such as constraint conditions such as fuel.

Step 6: Based on various information such as the degree of influence and countermeasures, the flight plan generation unit E is requested to generate a new flight plan for avoiding a bad situation, and the information is piloted. To present.

Next, the map information generating section G as the map information generating means shown in FIG. 1 comprises a map information generating device 21 and a terrain database 22 connected thereto.

The terrain database 22 stores map information including terrain data in a compressed form, and restores terrain data in the vicinity of coordinate positions requested by the flight plan generator E, the details of which will be described later. The terrain data is three-dimensional vectorized altitude data.

The map information generation device 21 generates map information of a predetermined area centered on the current coordinate position or arbitrary coordinate position of the aircraft and transmits it to the integrated display device F.
That is, the map information generation device 21 performs a drawing process on the map information based on the restored terrain data in the terrain database 22, develops the map information in an internal frame buffer (not shown), and transmits this to the integrated display device F.

Specifically, according to a request from the flight plan generator E, the terrain data in the terrain database 21 is dynamically changed with respect to the current coordinate position of the aircraft and the area where the aircraft will fly, that is, the area to be planned. I am trying to restore it. The map information to be restored can be directly instructed by the pilot.

The integrated display device F superimposes at least the terrain data of the map information generated by the map information generation device 21 and at least the route reference of the new flight plan generated by the flight plan generation unit E, and The evaluation result of the original flight plan in the flight plan evaluation section D is displayed, and the image thereof is displayed on the multi-function display f.

The flight plan generating section E as the flight plan generating means generates a new flight plan based on the flight specification data and the topographical data when the evaluation result of the flight plan evaluating section D is negative. is there.

Specifically, in response to a request from the flight plan evaluation section D to generate a new flight plan, a flight plan such as a flight route point (landing point), a landing airport, a route reference, and an altitude is generated. As shown in FIG. 5, it comprises a knowledge base 23, an inference processing section 24, a working memory 25, and an input / output interface 26.

The knowledge base 23 is a database in which the contents of documents such as flight plan generation knowledge and emergency operation procedures possessed by operators and pilots on the ground are symbolized and stored as a database.

The inference processing unit 24 infers and creates a new flight plan based on the flight specification data output from the navigation computer A and the various knowledge stored in the knowledge base 23, and also creates a new flight plan. This is to determine whether there is a geographical constraint in generating a flight plan.

The operation of the inference processing section 24 will be described with reference to FIG. Step 1 (abbreviated as S1 in the figure; the same applies hereinafter): When a replanning request signal is input from the flight plan evaluation unit D, generation of a new flight plan is started, and the process proceeds to step 2.

Step 2: When the request from the flight plan evaluation section D is confirmed, the planning phase is assigned and the process proceeds to step 3. The planning phase is
It refers to different flight plans such as flight route points, flight paths, landing airports, altitudes, and emergency landing procedures. The flight path represents an actual three-dimensional route standard of the aircraft between flight routes.

Step 3: When the phases are assigned, the next planning process of (A), (B), (C) corresponding to each phase is performed. Each planning process is similar to the ground-based flight planning, route planning system, and other knowledge base systems that have been developed so far, and knowledge corresponding to each planning process is stored in the knowledge base 23. (A) The flight route planning section selects a route point between the departure airport and the destination airport. When choosing,
Based on information such as priority, route selection criteria, fuel and wind forecast, candidates for combinations of route points are created.

(B) The flight path planning unit plans a more specific three-dimensional route. Here, in addition to the information on the constraint conditions, fuel, weather conditions, and the like as well as the planning of the route points, the terrain database 22 is transmitted through the map information generation device 21 as necessary to perform low altitude flight and avoid dangerous areas.
Use the terrain data stored in.

When the topographical constraint condition exists, the map information generating device 21 is requested to transmit the map information including the topographical data together with the coordinate position of the planning object, for example, the latitude / longitude and the coverage area. The map information generating device 21 restores the terrain data stored in the terrain database 22 in a frame buffer (not shown) based on the coordinate data, and sends the data to the flight plan generator E.

Knowledge base 2 together with these map information
The knowledge of pilots and route planners stored in 3
Based on experience, the optimal flight route from the current flight point to a point where the constraint situation can be avoided is searched from a limited range of airspace. In the search processing, route candidates are created by, for example, a heuristic search method.

(C) In the emergency landing procedure planning unit, based on the knowledge stored in the knowledge base 23, such as the contents of the document such as the emergency operation procedure and the limit matters, and the pilot's emergency operation procedure, etc. , Plan emergency operating procedures. Then, when the planning process in each phase is completed, the process proceeds to step 4.

Step 4: The flight plan generator E
The planning process candidates of each phase are presented to the pilot via the integrated display unit F or the CDU 27. In particular, the flight route and the flight path are superimposed on the terrain data generated by the map information generating device 21 by the integrated display device F and displayed on the multifunction display f.

As a result, the new flight plan is displayed in a form that the pilot can easily visually judge, and the pilot can instantly grasp the new flight plan even in a critical situation.

Step 5: The pilot inputs via the command input button of the CDU 27 or the bezel switch of the multifunction display f (neither is shown) whether to adopt or reject the presented candidate.

If the plan is rejected, step 3
To return to the pilot with the next new flight plan candidate. If the proposed flight plan candidate is to be adopted, the process proceeds to step 6.

Step 6: Transfer the adopted new flight plan to the data management device B or the like.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, but various modifications can be made within the scope of the invention. In the above example, after the initial flight plan,
Although the case where a new flight plan is generated only once is described as an example, it is needless to say that a new flight plan can be regenerated according to the situation.

[0076]

According to the invention of claim 1, the flight plan evaluating means evaluates whether or not the actual flight is proceeding according to the flight plan. Therefore, the flight is evaluated and generated during the flight. Artificial factors can be excluded from. As a result, it is possible to reliably prevent the actual flight from deviating from the flight plan, and it is possible to dramatically improve safety.

Further, since a new flight plan is automatically generated in real time on the aircraft according to the evaluation result of the flight plan evaluation means, the burden on the pilot can be reduced and an appropriate navigation can be selected according to the circumstances. .

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the inference processing section infers and evaluates the flight plan based on the knowledge about the flight plan evaluation method stored in the knowledge base. You can make an evaluation.

According to the third aspect of the invention, by the knowledge about the flight plan generation stored in the knowledge base,
Since the inference processing unit infers and generates the flight plan, it is possible to generate a reliable flight plan in addition to the above effects.

According to the invention described in claim 4, since the map information includes the terrain data composed of the three-dimensional vectorized altitude data, the terrain data can be taken into consideration when a new flight plan is generated. Therefore, when there is a topographical constraint such as low altitude flight, it is possible to perform accurate planning according to the situation.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, since the generated flight plan is displayed by being superimposed on the terrain data,
When the pilot evaluates the flight plan, the recognizability of the flight plan can be enhanced, and the efficiency of the planning work can be enhanced.

According to the sixth aspect of the present invention, since a plurality of flight plan candidates are generated, the optimum flight plan can be selected according to the situation.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a detailed configuration of a weather condition analysis unit.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a detailed configuration of a flight plan evaluation unit.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing operation in the inference processing unit.

FIG. 5 is a block unit showing a detailed configuration of a flight plan generation unit.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a processing operation in the inference processing section.

[Explanation of symbols]

A navigation computer B data management device C weather information generation unit (weather information generation means) D flight plan evaluation unit (flight plan evaluation means) E flight plan generation unit (flight plan generation means) F integrated display device (display means) G Map information generation unit (map information generation means) 17,23 Knowledge base 18,24 Inference processing unit

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A navigation computer that calculates flight specification data by detection signals from a plurality of sensors that detect flight conditions of an aircraft, a map information generation unit that generates map information, and a radar image from a weather radar. Meteorological information generating means for generating meteorological condition data based on the data, and flight plan evaluating means for evaluating whether or not the actual flight is proceeding according to the flight plan based on the flight specification data and the meteorological condition data, and When the evaluation result is negative, flight plan generating means for generating a new flight plan based on the flight specification data and the map information, and display means for displaying the evaluation result by the flight plan evaluating means and the new flight plan. Have a flight plan evaluation generation that is installed in an aircraft, characterized by being installed in the aircraft apparatus. 2. The flight plan evaluation means has a knowledge base that stores knowledge about a flight plan evaluation method as a database, and an inference processing unit that evaluates a flight plan based on the knowledge. A flight plan evaluation generator installed on an aircraft. 3. The aircraft according to claim 1, wherein the flight plan generating means has a knowledge base that stores knowledge about flight plan generation as a database, and an inference processing unit that generates a flight plan based on the knowledge. Flight plan evaluation generator. 4. The flight plan evaluation generating device mounted on an aircraft according to claim 1, wherein the map information includes terrain data composed of three-dimensional vectorized altitude data. 5. The flight plan evaluation generating device mounted on an aircraft according to claim 1, 2, 3 or 4, wherein the display means superimposes and displays the map information generated by the map information generating means and the new flight plan. 6. The flight plan generating means generates a plurality of candidate flight plans.
A flight plan evaluation generation device mounted on the aircraft described.