Analysis of the existing approaches to in-flight aircraft rerouting

Abstract

Currently, the large number of aircraft accidents is associated with the loss of control in flight and a controlled flight into terrain. It frequently occurs due to a change of flight conditions, relatively which a preparation for departure was carried out, and involves the necessity to reroute efficiently in the conditions of increased psychophysiological load and time constraint for decisionmaking. Generated thunderstorm cells on route, artificial or natural obstacles, not considered while planning a route, can result in amending a flight plan, which was earlier accepted and implemented in the automatic, flight director or manual modes of control. The lack of comprehensive situational awareness is fairly a frequent cause of aviation accidents for general aviation aircraft. Aviation accidents of transport category aircraft are typically associated with incorrect crew actions when dangerous flight zones are detected along the route. The article represents an overview and analyzes modern onboard facilities to detect obstacles, as well as required pilot actions to reroute a flight for in-flight detected obstacle avoidance. The current level of avionics development provides situational awareness necessary for obstacles avoidance but requires timely, correct and sometimes non-obvious flight crew rerouting decisions. The algorithms used with robotic packages of various applications in related fields ensure the automatic rerouting for obstacle avoidance. They cannot be directly used or adapted for the implementation on board an aircraft due to the lack of consideration for aircraft specific features when obstacle avoidance routing, i.e., restrictions of control parameters (an angle of attack, overload, roll angle), capabilities of a control system (available rate of overload, available and maximally allowable angular rolling velocity, etc.). Therefore, the issue to develop a system to support pilot decisions for obstacle avoidance is relevant. It encompasses the synthesis of safe alternatives for obstacle avoidance which are optimal by a pilot-assigned criterion (minimum loss of time, minimum additional fuel consumption, etc.).