Provided is a circuit including a report unit that reports action-allowable time information regarding an action-allowable time to a base station, and an action control unit that controls an action of a moving object on the basis of an action instruction. The action instruction is decided on the basis of the reported action-allowable time information and notified of by the base station. The action control unit further controls the action with reference to a map in which a danger level for each place is defined in an emergency situation.

Examples relate to uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) and methods for controlled descent during control tier failures. A computing device may initially detect a control tier failure at an UAV. In some examples, the UAV includes a fuselage, a pair of wings extending outwardly from the fuselage, and a pair of stabilizers arranged in a V-shape configuration. Each stabilizer has a control surface that is adjustable relative to a fixed portion of the stabilizer. Based on detecting the control tier failure at the UAV, the computing device may adjust the control surface of each stabilizer from a first angle to a second angle relative to the fixed portion of the stabilizer. By adjusting the angle between the control surfaces and fixed portions of one or both stabilizers, the UAV may induce a deep stall maneuver that can enable a controlled descent of the UAV.

A technique for managing an unplanned contingency landing of a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) includes determining by the UAV that the unplanned contingency landing is imminent, capturing aerial images of a ground area below the UAV with an onboard camera system as the UAV descends towards the ground area, semantically analyzing the aerial images to classify objects at the ground area into object classifications, depth analyzing the aerial images to determine above ground level (AGL) heights associated with each of the objects at the ground area, selecting a preferred landing site for the unplanned contingency landing that is coincident with one of the objects at the ground area based upon a contingency landing policy that ranks contingency landing sites based upon a combination of the object classifications and the AGL heights; and nudging the UAV towards the preferred landing site as the UAV descends towards the ground.

A vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) aircraft includes a plurality of navigation sensors and processing circuitry configured to implement a navigation system. The plurality of navigation sensors is configured to output navigation sensor data. The navigation system is configured to receive road map data, aviation map data, and navigation sensor data and execute an automated emergency landing control module. The automated emergency landing control module is configured to identify a plurality of candidate landing sites using the road map data, the aviation map data, and the navigation sensor data, and select a target landing site from among the plurality of candidate landing sites. Upon detection of an emergency condition, the automated emergency landing control module outputs the target landing site.

A technique controls a flight vehicle. In the technique, an operating mode for controlling the flight vehicle is set to one of normal modes when no abnormality has occurred in the flight vehicle. The operating mode is changed to one of fail-safe modes causing the flight vehicle to perform landing depending on current one of the normal modes when an abnormality has occurred in the flight vehicle.

This disclosure relates to flight control of electric aircraft and other vehicles. A computer-implemented method for estimating available range of an aircraft in flight is disclosed, comprising: receiving electrical information of one or more batteries measured using a first sensor; estimating aircraft-level energy based on electrical information of the one or more batteries; receiving one or more of an altitude of the aircraft or a current airspeed of the aircraft measured using a second sensor; estimating a steady-state force based on the one or more of the altitude of the aircraft or the current airspeed of the aircraft; estimating one or more of a vertical landing range or a horizontal landing range based on the one or more of the estimated aircraft-level energy or the estimated steady-state force; and displaying the one or more of the estimated vertical landing range or the estimated horizontal landing range on a display.

Systems and related operating methods are provided for landing an aircraft. An exemplary method involves determining an amount of available energy associated with an energy source onboard the aircraft is less than a predicted amount of energy required to land the aircraft in accordance with a flight plan or other procedure currently being flown. Thereafter, the method automatically operates the aircraft to descend using an unregulated vertical speed using a first control scheme to regulate an orientation of the aircraft to a reference orientation. Thereafter, when the altitude of the aircraft is below a threshold, the method automatically operates the aircraft to descend using a different control scheme to regulate a lateral position of the aircraft to a lateral trajectory to a landing location while regulating a velocity of the aircraft using a cost function.