초록 ▼

A system for aiding the movement of moving units (aircraft such as helicopters) when flying in formation. Every unit transmits information to every other unit so that bidirectional communication links are established between all units in the formation. Information indicative of the relative position

A system for aiding the movement of moving units (aircraft such as helicopters) when flying in formation. Every unit transmits information to every other unit so that bidirectional communication links are established between all units in the formation. Information indicative of the relative position between units is exchanged via the bidirectional communication links such that every unit has redundant position information pertaining to the position of every other unit. By a “data fusion”process performed on the redundant information, every unit accurately determines the position of every unit in the formation. One of the units (the “leader”) then transmits “commands”to the other units (the “slaves”). Each command determines the position of a slave within the formation. Utilizing the command transmitted to it by the leader, and utilizing predetermined laws of pilotability, each slave then generates “piloting orders”for directing itself to the position commanded by the leader. These piloting orders may be supplied to an autopilot for automatic control the formation. The distance quantity of the relative position between units may be determined based on the travelling time of the transmissions of the bidirectional communication links between units. The direction quantity of the relative position may be determined based on the detected direction from which the transmission of the bidirectional communication links originated.

대표청구항 ▼

A system comprising a leader unit and a plurality of slave units, each leader unit and each of said plurality of slave units being contained in a separate aircraft, each aircraft having a position, a heading, a speed, and an altitude, the leader unit and the plurality of slave units comprising a for

A system comprising a leader unit and a plurality of slave units, each leader unit and each of said plurality of slave units being contained in a separate aircraft, each aircraft having a position, a heading, a speed, and an altitude, the leader unit and the plurality of slave units comprising a formation, (A) said leader unit comprising: (i) transmitting means for transmitting leader messages, the leader messages containing leader measured unit position information; (ii) receiving means for receiving leader messages and slave messages, the slave messages containing slave measured unit position information; (iii) transmission direction and travelling time detection means, connected to the receiving means, for outputting the direction of slave messages and for outputting the time between transmission of a slave message and reception of the slave message; and (iv) processing means, connected to the transmission direction and travelling time detection means and connected to the transmitting means, for: (a) determining leader measured unit position information based on the output of the transmission direction and travelling time detection means, and (b) generating leader messages for transmission by the transmitting means to each slave unit, each leader message containing: the leader measured unit position information for a slave unit being transmitted to; and the heading, speed, and altitude of the leader unit, and a type of formation; (B) each of said slave units comprising: (i) transmitting means for transmitting slave messages; (ii) receiving means for receiving leader messages and slave messages; (iii) transmission direction and travelling time detection means, connected to the receiving means, for outputting the direction of a message and for outputting the time between transmission of the message and reception of the message; and (iv) processing means, connected to the transmission direction and travelling time detection means and connected to the transmitting means, for: (a) determining slave measured unit position information based on the output of the transmission direction and travelling time detection means; (b) performing a data fusion process to determine a relative position of the slave unit in the formation based on slave measured unit position information and based on leader measured position information; (c) calculating piloting orders for causing the slave unit to achieve the position, heading, speed, and altitude deduced from the leader message; and (d) generating slave messages for transmission by the transmitting means to each unit, each slave message containing: the slave measured unit position information for the unit being transmitted to in order that each unit is able to determine the relative position of every other unit.