Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Aeronautical vehicle
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-22
2002-01-22
Cuchlinski, Jr., William A. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Aeronautical vehicle
C244S075100, C244S175000, C340S967000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06341248
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for monitoring the flight parameters of an aircraft and, more particularly, to apparatus, methods, and computer program products for monitoring the attitude of an aircraft in order, for example, to provide an alternative indication to the pilot of an aircraft's attitude in a cost effective manner.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
An important, concern in the aircraft industry is ensuring flight safety. In light of this, many advancements have been made in the past few years to provide pilots and flight crew of aircraft with increased awareness concerning aircraft performance, flight parameters, and proximity of terrain and obstacles to the aircraft. For example, many of today's commercial and military grade aircraft include extensive instrumentation for providing the pilot and flight crew with a wide range of information concerning performance and flight parameters of the aircraft. Additionally, ground proximity warning systems, (also known as terrain awareness systems), have been developed, which analyze the flight parameters of the aircraft and the terrain surrounding the aircraft. Based on this analysis, these warning systems provide alerts to the flight crew concerning possible inadvertent collisions of the aircraft with surrounding terrain or other obstacles.
Providing flight safety systems for general aviation aircraft, however, has been somewhat problematic. Although flight safety is important, the cost and size of flight safety instrumentation and systems make these systems less feasible for smaller, less costly general aviation aircraft. As such, many of today's general aviation aircraft include less sophisticated instruments, and provide less information to the pilot and flight crew concerning aircraft operation and flight parameters than commercial and military grade aircraft. To remedy some of these problems, a ground proximity warning system has been developed by the Assignee of the present application for use in general aviation aircraft. This ground proximity warning system uses less inputs than ground proximity warning systems used in commercial and military grade aircraft to thereby accommodate for the reduced number of instruments available in the general aviation aircraft. This ground proximity warning system is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/534,222, entitled “Ground Proximity Warning System And Method Having A Reduced Set Of Input Parameters” filed on Mar. 24, 2000.
Despite the introduction of a ground proximity warning system for use in general aviation aircraft, there still remains a need for additional safety systems to provide the pilot and flight crew of general aviation aircraft with increased awareness concerning the flight operation and parameters of the aircraft. For example, many general aviation aircraft typically include an attitude indicator device, (also known as an artificial horizon). The attitude indicator provides both pitch and bank angle of the aircraft relative to Earth. For example,
FIG. 1
illustrates a typical attitude indicator. The attitude indicator of
FIG. 1
indicates that the aircraft associated with the attitude indicator is in a climbing turn.
Knowledge of the aircraft attitude with reference to Earth is very important for flight safety. Specifically, when the aircraft is flown either in inclement weather conditions, such as rain or fog, or at night, the pilot and flight crew cannot reference the plane's orientation with the earth's surface based on the ground below or the natural horizon. In these instances, the pilot and flight crew generally rely on the attitude indications provided by the attitude indicator for safe navigation. As such, it is important that the attitude indicator provide an accurate indication of the attitude of the aircraft, so that the aircraft may be safely flown in inclement weather conditions or at night.
However, there may be some accuracy problems associated with attitude indicators used in many aircraft. Specifically, attitude indicators are typically gyroscopic devices that operate on a vacuum source, which powers and spins the gyroscope. As illustrated in
FIG. 1
, as the aircraft changes pitch and bank angle, the gyroscope remains positioned level with the earth's surface, thereby indicating the aircraft's orientation relative to earth. Problems may occur when the vacuum pump either malfunctions or fails. In this instance, the attitude indicator will not accurately reflect the attitude of the aircraft. Even more problematic is the fact that this is typically not an abrupt event, but instead, the vacuum system typically fails in a gradual manner. As such, there may be a time frame in which the attitude indicator is providing erroneous indications, but not noticeably incorrect readings. Thus, if the pilot does not cross-check the attitude indicator against other cockpit instruments, he or she may make control inputs based on this erroneous information and position the aircraft in an unsafe attitude.
The problems associated with attitude indicator failure are generally not a major concern for commercial and military grade aircraft, as these aircraft include alternative sources of attitude information. For example, many of these aircraft include systems such as inertial navigation systems (INS). The INS includes three accelerometers mounted perpendicular to each other and three rate gyroscopes that measure the rate of movement of the aircraft about the pitch, roll, and yaw axes. The INS is often used in the aircraft auto-pilot systems to maintain the aircraft in a safe attitude. The INS can also be used by the pilot and flight crew as an alternative or back-up system to the attitude indicator.
Additionally, attitude systems have been developed using global positioning systems (GPS). These attitude systems include three GPS antennas that are located at different positions on the body of the aircraft. Each of the GPS antennas provides a position of the aircraft corresponding to the position of the body of the aircraft to which the GPS antenna is attached. By comparing the positions output by each of the GPS antennas, the pitch, roll, and yaw of the aircraft can be determined.
Although these INS and GPS based attitude systems provide alternative or back-up systems for monitoring the attitude of an aircraft, these systems may not be feasible for use in some aircraft. Specifically, these systems are typically expensive, are of significant size and weight, and require ancillary equipment to support these systems. As such, a system for monitoring and providing an alternative indication of the attitude of the aircraft to the pilot and flight crew that is more cost effective, reduced in size and weight, and requires less ancillary equipment is needed for use in general aviation aircraft, as well as other types of aircraft.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
As set forth below, the present invention provides apparatus, methods, and computer program products for monitoring the attitude of an aircraft. Importantly, the apparatus, methods, and computer program products of the present invention use the velocity vector generated by a single GPS antenna and the sensed roll and pitch angles of the aircraft generated by a pair of low cost gyroscopes to provide an indication of the attitude of the aircraft. By using a single GPS antenna and a pair of low cost gyroscopes, the apparatus, methods, and computer program products of the present invention provide a low cost alternative aircraft attitude indicator that can be used either in place of or in conjunction with the traditional attitude indicator of the aircraft.
Accordingly, in one embodiment, the present invention includes an apparatus for monitoring the attitude of an aircraft. The apparatus includes both an input for receiving velocity values related to the velocity vector of the aircraft and an output for providing a composite roll and flight path angle of the aircraft. Connected to the input is a generator for determining a calculate
Cuchlinski Jr. William A.
Hernandez Olga
Honeywell International , Inc.
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