An aircraft includes an autopilot system including one or more processors. The one or more processors are configured to, in response to selection of an autopilot activation button during flight of the aircraft while the aircraft is operating in a first condition, apply first control laws to automatically control the flight of the aircraft. The one or more processors are further configured to, in response to selection of the autopilot activation button while the aircraft is operating in a second condition, apply second control laws to automatically control the flight of the aircraft, where the second control laws are different from the first control laws.

Embodiments described herein may relate to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) navigating to a target in order to provide medical support. An illustrative method involves a UAV (a) determining an approximate target location associated with a target, (b) using a first navigation process to navigate the UAV to the approximate target location, where the first navigation process generates flight-control signals based on the approximate target location, (c) making a determination that the UAV is located at the approximate target location, and (d) in response to the determination that the UAV is located at the approximate target location, using a second navigation process to navigate the UAV to the target, wherein the second navigation process generates flight-control signals based on real-time localization of the target.

A method is provided for adjusting a flight plan rejoining trajectory of an aircraft, the method being implemented in a flight management system of the aircraft. In a first step, the rejoining trajectory comprises a guidance setpoint holding point to be reached situated in the extension of a guidance setpoint, and set manually or automatically, the guidance setpoint no longer being necessarily maintained when this setpoint holding point is passed. This first step can be preceded by a step of rejoining a guidance setpoint or a step of searching for the intersection of the current guidance setpoint trajectory with a segment of the flight plan.

A method for assisting an aircraft in landing on a runway and an associated system includes determining a target exit point from the runway and a target taxi speed at which the aircraft has to take the target exit; calculating a target ground distance representative of a ground deceleration phase; and calculating the position of a target touchdown point on the basis of the target ground distance. The target ground distance is calculated as a function of a target deceleration profile for the aircraft to reach the target exit point at the target taxi speed.

A robust control method for an oblique flying wing aircraft includes computing an angular velocity error between a reference angular velocity and an actual angular velocity and computing a moment command with an angular velocity controller based at least in part on the angular velocity error. The angular velocity controller decouples two or more of a yaw rate axis, a pitch rate axis, and a roll rate axis of the asymmetric aircraft for the moment command.

A method for guiding a weapon to a target, the method comprising: obtaining a required impact vector for the weapon at the target, obtaining a line of sight (LOS) vector from the weapon to the target; determining a velocity vector of the weapon; defining a guidance plane, the guidance plane being a plane in which both the impact vector and the LOS vector lie; generating guidance commands for the weapon to place the velocity vector of the weapon in the guidance plane with a velocity perpendicular to the guidance plane of zero.

A gyro unit mounted on a steered object for performing steering based on a steering signal received from the outside comprises a gyro sensor, a calculation portion and a controller. The calculation portion is configured to perform calculations for posture control of the steered object based on the steering signal and a detection signal of the gyro sensor. The controller is configured to perform control such that a control direction of the posture control switches when the steered object moves forward and backward.

An autonomous vehicle system is configured to receive vehicle commands from one or more parties and to execute those vehicle commands in a way that prevents the execution of stale commands. The autonomous vehicle system includes a finite state machine and a command counter or stored vehicle timestamp, which are used to help reject invalid or stale vehicle commands.

Various techniques can be utilized to emit a signal away from the entity generating the signal or otherwise reduce the signature in the electromagnetic spectrum of an entity in communication with another entity at a distance. Static and mobile air, land, and sea-based assets can be used with combinations of physical, wired, and wireless interactions.

Autonomous systems increase the robustness and safety of current aircraft and to support simplified vehicle, reduced crew, and single pilot operations. The autonomous systems aid air crews in their handling of non-normal, high workload, aircraft upset scenarios. The upset scenarios include the recovery from attitudes outside of the normal operating envelope that even the most robust automatic flight control systems currently in service today do not support.