Landing aid device, especially for anti-ground-collision...

Details Landing aid device, especially for anti-ground-collision... Landing aid device, especially for anti-ground-collision...

1999-09-24

2001-11-13

Cuchlinski, Jr., William A. (Department: 3661)

Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location

Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication

Aeronautical vehicle

C073S17800T, C340S945000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06317663

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to the landing of aeroplanes.
Aircraft are now furnished with anti-ground-collision alerting devices. However, landing is a form of gentle collision with the ground. Therefore, onwards of a certain moment in the landing approach, the alerting device will continually generate an untimely alert. It is desirable for this alert to be selectively vetoed, so as not to needlessly hinder the pilot, whose attention is especially demanded during landing.
PRIOR ART
A known solution consists in vetoing the alert when the height of the aircraft from the ground remains below a given threshold.
This solution is not entirely satisfactory. Specifically, if the threshold is fixed fairly low, the pilot is needlessly inconvenienced by an alert. If the threshold is fixed fairly high, the hindrance due to the untimely alert is diminished; on the other hand, the benefit of the anti-ground-collision alerting device is lost at a moment when its indications may be valuable, most particularly when the anti-ground-collision alerting device involved is of high performance.
A landing aid device comprising processing means, which receive on the one hand aircraft path data, and on the other hand data regarding the position of at least one runway, may be regarded as known.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is a principal object of the invention to provide means to effect a veto whose qualities are connected with those of the anti-ground-collision alert itself, so as to avoid undesirable alert conditions during supposedly normal landing approaches.
Having posed and analysed this problem, the Applicants have sought to define automatically one or more conditions indicating that a landing approach is normal.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the invention, the processing means comprise calculation means able to supply a state signal, comprising at least one condition which is a function of the path data and on the runway data, this function being chosen so as to express the fact that the path of the aircraft converges towards the runway.
Preferably the calculation means are organized so as to define a volume which possesses a chosen outline, positioned in a chosen manner with respect to the said runway, which is advantageously defined by a representation stored in memory. In addition, the state signal comprises a so-called static condition, pertaining to the belonging of the current position of the aircraft to this volume.
More preferably the state signal furthermore comprises a so-called dynamic condition, pertaining to the convergence of a predicted path of the aircraft towards the said runway, according to a chosen criterion.
According to other aspects of the invention, which will be described hereinafter in detail, within the static condition there is distinguished a horizontal static subcondition and a vertical static subcondition, and, preferably, within the dynamic condition there is distinguished a horizontal dynamic subcondition and a vertical dynamic subcondition.
A very important application of the invention is the vetoing of some at least of the alerts generated by an anti-ground-collision alerting device for an aircraft, during the landing approach. The invention applies most particularly in the precise case where the alert-generator means are based on comparing positions situated on at least one predicted path of the aircraft with a stored representation of the said terrain, in which case the stored representation of the runway is referred to the same co-ordinate system as the stored representation of the terrain which serves for the alert-generator means.


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