초록 ▼

A self contained electronic system for manual or automatic control and navigation of fixed winged aircraft using electronic position sensing such as GPS, DGPS, WAAS, and the like, as the primary sensor and making use of known flight characteristics of the aircraft to determine aircraft attitude with

A self contained electronic system for manual or automatic control and navigation of fixed winged aircraft using electronic position sensing such as GPS, DGPS, WAAS, and the like, as the primary sensor and making use of known flight characteristics of the aircraft to determine aircraft attitude without any interaction with the aircraft, its controls, or the outside environment and without any moving mechanical devices other than switches, dials and connectors. The automatic and visual interface between the system and the pilot provides for simplified flight controls, and a new solution to the hazard of disorientation, and will reduce the time needed for a pilot to become proficient in VFR and instrument flying. A single instrument replaces many of the conventional instruments used for flight. Navigation data is provided in an easy to understand graphical format. The pilot is told explicitly where to move aircraft controls. The absence of mechanical devices and presence of battery backup make the system extremely reliable and capable of continuing operation of the aircraft independent of the aircraft power or vacuum sources.

대표청구항 ▼

1. We claim an electronic instrumentation system which comprises positioning sensors such as satellite global positioning system hardware and controlling software, said hardware and software being designed to provide a pilot of an aircraft with both manual and automatic control of his aircraft under

1. We claim an electronic instrumentation system which comprises positioning sensors such as satellite global positioning system hardware and controlling software, said hardware and software being designed to provide a pilot of an aircraft with both manual and automatic control of his aircraft under any known weather conditions, including complete blindness to surrounding conditions and loss of conventional instrumentation and instrument power, said system being comprised of (a) a position determining device, (b) a graphic display, (c) a computer system, (d) software, (e) input connectors, (f) knobs, and (g) switches, wherein items (a) through (g) replace and/or supplement the conventional aircraft instrumentation on an instrument display, and thereby allow the aircraft pilot to maintain complete control of his aircraft, either by manual response to graphic direction as depicted on the graphical display screen or automatically, without the need for manual intervention, to follow either predefined paths and patterns as well as navigation by presently accepted methods and defined locations, said electronic instrumentation system further being capable of determining position and velocity relative to three dimensional locations of airports, fixes, conventional navigational aids, and user input locations, generating standard and non-standard approaches, flight paths and search patterns associated with the aforementioned locations, calculating current air speed and direction, as well as providing direct or partial replacements for conventional aircraft displays and instruments including attitude indicator, altimeter, reporting altimeter, rate of climb indicator, turn and slip indicator, heading indicator, rate-of-turn indicator, clock, marker beacon receiver, Distance Measuring Equipment (DME), Vector Omni Range (VOR), Area Navigation (RNAV), Automatic Direction Finder (ADF), Instrument Landing System (ILS), and Long Range Navigation (LORAN) without the use of any moving parts except knobs, switches and connectors.