Invention Application
- Patent Title: AUTONOMOUS FLIGHT SAFETY SYSTEM
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Application No.: PCT/US2022/032845Application Date: 2022-06-09
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Publication No.: WO2023038684A1Publication Date: 2023-03-16
- Inventor: BEARD, Gary C. , AVEN, Kyle , ANDERSON, Rusty , HELMS, Keith , XERRI, Jason , ODOM, Luther E., Jr.
- Applicant: GENERAL ATOMICS
- Applicant Address: 3550 General Atomics Court
- Assignee: GENERAL ATOMICS
- Current Assignee: GENERAL ATOMICS
- Current Assignee Address: 3550 General Atomics Court
- Agency: LEBENS, Thomas F. et al.
- Priority: US17/469,024 2021-09-08
- Main IPC: G05D1/06
- IPC: G05D1/06 ; G05D1/08 ; B64C29/02 ; B64C39/02 ; G05D1/02 ; G05D1/04 ; G05D1/10 ; G08G5/06
Abstract:
The present disclosure describes autonomous flight safety systems (AFSSs) that incorporate an autonomous flight termination unit (AFTU) enabling AFSS monitoring for various termination conditions that are used to activate a flight termination system (e.g., in the event a termination condition is detected). Such termination conditions include boundary limit detection (e.g., whether a vehicle position is outside or projected outside a planned flight envelope), as well as body instability detection (e.g., whether a pitch rate and yaw rate exceed some threshold indicative of vehicle instability). For instance, an AFTU may incorporate a three-axis gyroscope sensor and may implement instability detection processing based on information obtained via the sensor. Instability detection processing may include, for example, a BID algorithm that may be implemented by an AFTU to monitor angular rates of the vehicle, to determine if the vehicle is no longer under stable control, and to issue termination commands when termination conditions are detected.
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