Presented herein is a method and system for managing one or more missions of a vehicle. The apparatus includes one or more processors configured to control and manage flight missions and includes an active storage for executing a current mission, and a separate passive storage for subsequent missions. Subsequent missions are cued on the second storage to be validated and may be modified in view of additional information, prior to execution for maintaining positive control over the aircraft. The one or more processors are further configured to store a plurality of missions, including the current mission and a second mission, in a data store of a mission manager, each of the plurality of missions including a task graph having selected tasks to be completed for the mission, and a route map including a route for the vehicle to travel on the mission.

Systems, devices, and methods for receiving, by a processor having addressable memory, data representing a geographical area for imaging by one or more sensors of an aerial vehicle; determining one or more straight-line segments covering the geographical area; determining one or more waypoints located at an end of each determined straight-line segment, where each waypoint comprises a geographical location, an altitude, and a direction of travel; determining one or more turnarounds connecting each of the straight-line segments, where each turnaround comprises one or more connecting segments; and generating, by the processor, a flight plan for the aerial vehicle comprising: the determined one or more straight-line segments and the determined one or more turnarounds connecting each straight-line segment.

Systems and methods for navigating an aerial vehicle are provided. One example aspect of the present disclosure is directed to a method for navigating an aircraft. The method includes receiving, by one or more processors, one or more first geographic coordinates via an interface configured to receive geographic coordinates from a satellite transmission. The method includes receiving, by the one or more processors, one or more second geographic coordinates via an interface configured to receive geographic coordinates from a ground transmission. The method includes determining, by the one or more processors, that the one or more first geographic coordinates and the one or more second geographic coordinates are inconsistent. The method includes updating, by the one or more processors, a flight plan using the one or more second geographic coordinates when the one or more first geographic coordinates are inconsistent with the one or more second geographic coordinates.

Devices and computer-implemented methods for analyzing aircraft trajectories, the method includes the steps of receiving data associated with a plurality of aircraft trajectories; breaking the trajectories down into a plurality of vectors, a vector comprising one or more sequences of enumerators; aligning multiple vectorized trajectories by shifting sequences of enumerators by one or more positions; and detecting one or more anomalies in one or more trajectories by unsupervised classification (e.g. DBSCAN). Developments describe the supervised determination of trajectory anomaly detection models, the use of density-based algorithms, the use of one or more neural networks and/or decision trees, one or more display steps, notably displaying root causes (explainable or understandable artificial intelligence), the processing of avionics data flows, etc. System (e.g. computing) and software aspects are described.

Vehicle systems and methods are provided for updating vehicle systems in response to an update event at one of the vehicle systems, such as, for example, an update at a flight management system (FMS) of an aircraft. One method involves the FMS obtaining event data from an external source indicative of an update event, updating flight data at the FMS to an updated state based at least in part on the event data, and then adding the event data to an event queue after updating the flight data at the FMS to the updated state. One or more other vehicle systems can asynchronously retrieve the event data from the event queue and independently update in response to the event data.

A flight management system (FMS) including a plurality of FMS components that can include a civil FMS component and a tactical FMS component. Each FMS component can have a processor programmed to execute an FMS software product. The FMS can also include a multi core FMS manager configured to control a plurality of flight management systems and coupled to the plurality of FMS components. The multi core FMS manager can include a plurality of FMS managers, each coupled to one of the FMS components, and a platform interface manager coupled to an avionics system. Each FMS manager can be adapted to transmit flight management data to, and to receive flight management data from, the FMS component to which it is coupled. The platform interface manager can be adapted to provide each FMS component access to the avionics system, such that an aircraft operator can control each FMS component via the FMS.

A registration authority (RA) server registers unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and their owners/operators (O/O). A UAV is maintained in a flight lock state until a flight plan request from the O/O is approved by the RA, which sends an key-signed approval to unlock the UAV's flight lock. The RA server evaluates a UAV's proposed flight plan based on the attributes of the O/O and UAV, the location and time of the requested flight plan, and a set of flight rules and exclusion zones that are developed in view of privacy assurance, security assurance, flight safety assurance, and ground safety assurance. The flight plan key-signed approval supplied to the UAV by the RA server specifies an inclusion zone that corresponds to a flight plan trajectory to be followed. Once in flight, the UAV maintains real-time knowledge of its position and time to ensure its flight remains within the approved inclusion zone.

A preexisting FMS system may be upgraded to increase its functionality by optimizing the control of autopilot and auto-throttle functions and replacing other preexisting components with different components for enhancing the functionality of the FMS system. The preexisting IRU, CADC, DME receiver and DFGC in the upgraded FMS system are in communication with the legacy AFMC but, instead of employing the legacy EFIS, the EFIS is replaced by a data concentrator unit as well as the display control panel and integrated flat panel display, and a GPS receiver. The upgraded FMS system is capable of iteratively controlling the autopilot and auto-throttle during all phases of flight and of such increased functionality as increased navigation database storage capacity, RNP, VNAV, LPV and RNAV capability utilizing a GPS based navigation solution, and RTA capability, while still enabling the legacy AFMC to exploit its aircraft performance capabilities throughout the flight.

Embodiments of the present invention provide an alternative distributed airborne transportation system. In some embodiments, a method for distributed airborne transportation includes: providing an airborne vehicle with a wing and a wing span, having capacity to carry one or more of passengers or cargo; landing of the airborne vehicle near one or more of passengers or cargo and loading at least one of passengers or cargo; taking-off and determining a flight direction for the airborne vehicle; locating at least one other airborne vehicle, which has substantially the same flight direction; and joining at least one other airborne vehicle in flight formation and forming a fleet, in which airborne vehicles fly with the same speed and direction and in which adjacent airborne vehicles are separated by distance of less than 100 wing spans.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for ground control point assignment and determination. One of the methods includes receiving information describing a flight plan for the UAV to implement, the flight plan identifying one or more waypoints associated with geographic locations assigned as ground control points. A first waypoint identified in the flight plan is traveled to, and an action to designate a surface at the associated geographic location is designated as a ground control point. Location information associated with the designated surface is stored. The stored location information is provided to an outside system for storage.