Path planning, terrain avoidance and situation awareness system for general aviation

Claim 1

A method of performing a real-time dynamic collision check comprising the steps of: using Digitized Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) to generate a terrain model, said terrain model containing a set of nodes, each of the nodes containing four parameters I,J,K,S, the four parameters I,J,K,S being obtained by mapping each elevation peak point I,J,K of a DTED file into a 3-D locational code of a corresponding Oct-tree, parameters I,J,K defining 3-D coordinates of a space location, a scaling factor of the elevation being introduced with divides the terrain elevation into bands, and parameter K representing scaled elevation, wherein the nodes of said Oct-tree with equal scaled value of elevation occurring in a same quadrant of a corresponding quad-tree are merged and the scaling factor is non-linear or, beginning with a baseline instead of mean sea level, parameter S is a coverage area of a node and is added to represent the size of a respective node, said bit positions of the four parameters I,J,K,S being interleaved to form an integer representation of the respective node; using the terrain model to provide a navigation space; accessing and retrieving the terrain model to generate a terrain map; identifying a list of the nodes in the navigation space based on flight altitude; establishing a ground track for a flight path segment, said ground track including a list of the nodes on the terrain map; and determining whether a flight path segment is in conflict with a dangerous zone by searching each of the nodes of the ground track for the flight path segment against the list of nodes in the navigation space.

Claim 2

A method of performing a real-time dynamic collision check comprising the steps of: using Digitized Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) to generate a terrain model, said terrain model containing a set of nodes, each of the nodes containing four parameters I,J,K,S, the four parameters I,J,K,S being obtained by mapping each elevation peak point I,J,K of a DTED file into a 3-D locational code of a corresponding Oct-tree, parameters I,J,K defining 3-D coordinates of a space location, a scaling factor of the elevation being introduced with divides the terrain elevation into bands, and parameter K representing scaled elevation, wherein the nodes of said Oct-tree with equal scaled value of elevation occurring in a same quadrant of a corresponding quad-tree are merged and the scaling factor is non-linear or, beginning with a baseline instead of mean sea level, parameter S is a coverage area of a node and is added to represent the size of a respective node, said bit positions of the four parameters I,J,K,S being interleaved to form an integer representation of the respective node; using the terrain model to provide a navigation space; accessing and retrieving the terrain model to generate a terrain map; identifying a list of the nodes in the navigation space based on flight altitude; establishing a ground track for a flight path segment, said ground track including a list of the nodes on the terrain map; and determining whether a flight path segment is in conflict with a dangerous zone by searching each of the nodes of the ground track for the flight path segment against the list of nodes in the navigation space.

Claim 4

A method of performing a real-time dynamic weather condition avoidance comprising the steps of: using Digitized Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) to generate a terrain model, said terrain model containing a set of nodes, each of the nodes containing four parameters I,J,K,S, the four parameters I,J,K,S being obtained by mapping each elevation peak point I,J,K of a DTED file into a 3-D locational code of a corresponding Oct-tree, parameters I,J,K defining 3-D coordinates of a space location, a scaling factor of the elevation being introduced with divides the terrain elevation into bands, and parameter K representing scaled elevation, wherein the nodes of said Oct-tree with equal scaled value of elevation occurring in a same quadrant of a corresponding quad-tree are merged and the scaling factor is non-linear or, beginning with a baseline instead of mean sea level, parameter S is a coverage area of a node and is added to represent the size of a respective node, said bit positions of the four parameters I,J,K,S being interleaved to form an integer representation of the respective node; using the terrain model to provide a navigation space; accessing and retrieving the terrain model to generate a terrain map; establishing a start point and a goal point in the navigation space to determine a ground track for a direct flight path on the terrain map; identifying a dangerous zone based on the ground track and flight altitude; establishing a weather condition coverage area and representing the weather coverage area by a list of the nodes; adding the list of nodes of the weather coverage area to a list of the nodes of the dangerous zone to obtain a new dangerous zone; using said new dangerous zone to allocate a set of way-points for avoidance; constructing a visibility graph for a new navigation space, in which is a set of collision free path segments; linking the start point to the goal point by a flight path searching algorithm; and obtaining the terrain profile of the flight path from the terrain model.

Claim 5

A method of performing a real-time dynamic weather condition avoidance comprising the steps of: using Digitized Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) to generate a terrain model, said terrain model containing a set of nodes, each of the nodes containing four parameters I,J,K,S, the four parameters I,J,K,S being obtained by mapping each elevation peak point I,J,K of a DTED file into a 3-D locational code of a corresponding Oct-tree, parameters I,J,K defining 3-D coordinates of a space location, a scaling factor of the elevation being introduced with divides the terrain elevation into bands, and parameter K representing scaled elevation, wherein the nodes of said Oct-tree with equal scaled value of elevation occurring in a same quadrant of a corresponding quad-tree are merged and the scaling factor is non-linear or, beginning with a baseline instead of mean sea level, parameter S is a coverage area of a node and is added to represent the size of a respective node, said bit positions of the four parameters I,J,K,S being interleaved to form an integer representation of the respective node; using the terrain model to provide a navigation space; accessing and retrieving the terrain model to generate a terrain map; establishing a start point and a goal point in the navigation space to determine a ground track for a direct flight path on the terrain map; identifying a dangerous zone based on the ground track and flight altitude; establishing a weather condition coverage area and representing the weather coverage area by a list of the nodes; adding the list of nodes of the weather coverage area to a list of the nodes of the dangerous zone to obtain a new dangerous zone; using said new dangerous zone to allocate a set of way-points for avoidance; constructing a visibility graph for a new navigation space, in which is a set of collision free path segments; linking the start point to the goal point by a flight path searching algorithm; and obtaining the terrain profile of the flight path from the terrain model.

Claim 7

A method of performing real-time dynamic obstacles avoidance comprising the steps of: using Digitized Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) to generate a terrain model, said terrain model containing a set of nodes, each of the nodes containing four parameters I,J,K,S, the four parameters I,J,K,S being obtained by mapping each elevation peak point I,J,K of a DTED file into a 3-D locational code of a corresponding Oct-tree, parameters I,J,K defining 3-D coordinates of a space location, a scaling factor of the elevation being introduced with divides the terrain elevation into bands, and parameter K representing scaled elevation, wherein the nodes of said Oct-tree with equal scaled value of elevation occurring in a same quadrant of a corresponding quad-tree are merged and the scaling factor is non-linear or, beginning with a baseline instead of mean sea level, parameter S is a coverage area of a node and is added to represent the size of the node, said bit positions of the four parameters I,J,K,S being interleaved to form an integer representation of a respective node; using the terrain model to provide a navigation space; accessing and retrieving the terrain model to generate a terrain map; establishing a start point and a goal point in the navigation space to determine a ground track for a direct flight path on the terrain map; identifying a dangerous zone based on the ground track and flight altitude; establishing an obstacles coverage area and representing the obstacles coverage area by a list of the nodes; adding the list of nodes of the obstacles coverage area to a list of the nodes of the dangerous zone to obtain a new dangerous zone; using said new dangerous zone to allocate a set of way-points for avoidance; constructing a visibility graph for a new navigation space, in which is a set of collision free path segments; linking the start point to the goal point by a flight path searching algorithm; and obtaining the terrain profile of the flight path from the terrain model.

Claim 8

A method of performing real-time dynamic obstacles avoidance comprising the steps of: using Digitized Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) to generate a terrain model, said terrain model containing a set of nodes, each of the nodes containing four parameters I,J,K,S, the four parameters I,J,K,S being obtained by mapping each elevation peak point I,J,K of a DTED file into a 3-D locational code of a corresponding Oct-tree, parameters I,J,K defining 3-D coordinates of a space location, a scaling factor of the elevation being introduced with divides the terrain elevation into bands, and parameter K representing scaled elevation, wherein the nodes of said Oct-tree with equal scaled value of elevation occurring in a same quadrant of a corresponding quad-tree are merged and the scaling factor is non-linear or, beginning with a baseline instead of mean sea level, parameter S is a coverage area of a node and is added to represent the size of the node, said bit positions of the four parameters I,J,K,S being interleaved to form an integer representation of a respective node; using the terrain model to provide a navigation space; accessing and retrieving the terrain model to generate a terrain map; establishing a start point and a goal point in the navigation space to determine a ground track for a direct flight path on the terrain map; identifying a dangerous zone based on the ground track and flight altitude; establishing an obstacles coverage area and representing the obstacles coverage area by a list of the nodes; adding the list of nodes of the obstacles coverage area to a list of the nodes of the dangerous zone to obtain a new dangerous zone; using said new dangerous zone to allocate a set of way-points for avoidance; constructing a visibility graph for a new navigation space, in which is a set of collision free path segments; linking the start point to the goal point by a flight path searching algorithm; and obtaining the terrain profile of the flight path from the terrain model.