A flight management assembly for an aircraft and method for monitoring such an assembly. The flight management assembly includes two guidance systems each provided with a flight management system, the flight management systems being independent, each of the flight management systems carrying out at least one calculation of roll commands for the aircraft, the flight management assembly also comprising a data generating unit, preferably forming part of a guidance computer, for calculating a roll command and a monitoring unit for carrying out a monitoring of the roll commands calculated by the two flight management systems and by the data generating unit in such a way as to be able to detect and identify a defective flight management system.

A flight management system is modified so that it can deal with an unpredicted current event happening to an airplane based on non-standard maneuvers that have been carried out previously by other airplanes in similar circumstances. This allows the flight management system to adaptively or dynamically respond to a variety of flight path changes rather than rely solely on a set of fixed responses to predictable events during a flight. Specifically, the flight management system is configured to provide procedural recommendations to a flight crew in real time based on collaboratively filtered historical data such that the flight crew can make smarter choices while operating airplanes.

A method determines the optimal turn direction of an aircraft among two directions, right and left, following a lateral trajectory to join an arrival straight charted by an angle of arrival, based on a departure point and angle of departure defining a departure straight oriented along movement of the aircraft, the direction defined by a respectively positive or negative optimal turn sign, comprising: determining a conventional departure sign of the departure point; determining a center value of an angle of change of course equal to the difference between the angle of arrival and angle of departure referred back between 180 and +180, the center value exhibiting a logical sign corresponding to the center value sign of the angle of change of course; determining the sign of the optimal turn based on comparison between the departure sign and the logical sign, the sign of the optimal turn defining optimal turn direction.

A method and apparatus of turning an aircraft for interval management. Interval management information identifying a desired spacing between the aircraft and a target aircraft is received. Turn information is determined using a performance gain factor. The turn information identifies a turn point for the aircraft. The performance gain factor identifies a desired portion of achieving the desired spacing due to turning the aircraft at the turn point and a desired portion of achieving the desired spacing due to changing speed of the aircraft. The turn information is used to turn the aircraft at the turn point.

A navigation system for an aircraft includes a light source, a light sensor, one or more processors, and a computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the navigation system to perform functions. The functions include illuminating a surface using the light source to cause light to be reflected from the surface and detecting the light and generating data representing the light using the light sensor. The data maps intensities of the light to respective positions on the surface. The functions further include identifying within the data a subset of the data that corresponds to a border and causing navigation of the aircraft based on a position of the border indicated by the subset of the data.

Embodiments assess vehicle noise. One such embodiment defines a computer-based model of a vehicle and automatically determines aerodynamic performance and propulsion performance of the vehicle based on the defined computer-based model. Responsively, a flight-dynamics simulation of the vehicle is performed using the determined aerodynamic performance and propulsion performance. Performing the flight-dynamics simulation produces flight status data. The flight status data is automatically down-sampled to generate a reduced dataset. A high-fidelity flow simulation of the vehicle is performed using the reduced dataset. Performing the high-fidelity flow simulation determines in-flight aerodynamic and aeroacoustic performance of the vehicle. In turn, based on the determined in-flight aerodynamic and aeroacoustic performance, noise physical characteristics of the vehicle are determined and an indication of the determined noise physical characteristics is stored in computer memory.

Embodiments assess vehicle noise. One such embodiment defines a computer-based model of a vehicle and automatically determines aerodynamic performance and propulsion performance of the vehicle based on the defined computer-based model. Responsively, a flight-dynamics simulation of the vehicle is performed using the determined aerodynamic performance and propulsion performance. Performing the flight-dynamics simulation produces flight status data. The flight status data is automatically down-sampled to generate a reduced dataset. A high-fidelity flow simulation of the vehicle is performed using the reduced dataset. Performing the high-fidelity flow simulation determines in-flight aerodynamic and aeroacoustic performance of the vehicle. In turn, based on the determined in-flight aerodynamic and aeroacoustic performance, noise physical characteristics of the vehicle are determined and an indication of the determined noise physical characteristics is stored in computer memory.

A system and a method include an artificial intelligence control unit configured to receive data from notification sources. The data relate to an aircraft being operated by a pilot. The artificial intelligence control unit is further configured to determine relevant information for operating the aircraft from the data, and provide an information presentation including the relevant information on a display of a user interface of the aircraft. The aircraft is operated based on the relevant information.

A method and system for determining visual approach guidance for an aircraft has been developed. As an aircraft approaches an airport for landing, a visual approach (VA) engine is enabled with an approach path monitor (APM) located onboard the aircraft. An approach path database is accessed that contains multiple visual circling approach paths along with accompanying data for each of the visual circling approach paths. A specific visual circling approach path is selected from the approach path database based on the accompanying data for each of the visual circling approach paths and the aircraft enters the selected specific visual circling approach path.

A highly reliable and high-precision navigation and positioning method and system for UAV under GPS-DENIED conditions includes: obtaining measurements of inertial sensor and image of binocular camera, extracting and tracking point features of the image, and obtaining altitude value; calculating position and attitude of camera and depth of landmark point based on the parallax and baseline of the binocular camera; fusing the measurement data of the inertial sensor and the binocular camera, and optimizing the data to obtain high-precision position and attitude data; obtaining the altitude value of the ranging radar and performing four-degree-of-freedom position and attitude graph optimization after adding the detected keyframes when repeated occurrence of the UAV at the same location is detected; encapsulating optimized position and attitude data to form a pseudo-GPS signal, inputting the pseudo-GPS signal to the UAV for positioning.