FLIGHT CONDITION EVALUATION AND PROTECTION FOR UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES AND REMOTELY-PILOTED VEHICLES

摘要

A framework for combining a weather risk analysis with appropriate operational rules includes a data initialization component, a rules processing component, and one or more weather risk analysis and assessment tools to evaluate a flight condition. The framework applies current, historical, predicted and forecasted weather data to the one or more operational rules governing a mission, a payload, a flight plan, a craft type, and a location of the mission for aircraft such as an unmanned aerial vehicle or remotely-piloted vehicle, and generates advisories based on the evaluation of flight conditions such as a mission compliance status, instructions for operation of unmanned aircraft, and management advisories. The flight condition advisories include either a “fly” advisory or a “no-fly” advisory, and the framework may also provide a mission prioritization and optimization system.

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
ingesting, as input data, weather information, mission-specific flight parameters for an unmanned aircraft, and one or more operational rules for the unmanned aircraft, the weather information including at least one of current weather data, historical weather data, predicted weather data, and forecasted weather data for a specific geographic area, the mission-specific flight parameters defining a mission and including one or more of a payload, a flight plan, a craft type, and a geographical location of the mission, and the one or more operational rules at least relating to performance of the mission; analyzing the input data in a plurality of data processing modules within a computing environment in which the plurality of data processing modules are executed in conjunction with at least one processor, the data processing modules configured to confirm a validity of a flight certificate of mission authorization, and perform a risk assessment for the mission relative to the weather information and the mission-specific flight parameters by 1) computing one or more mission risk probabilities in a weather-based statistical analysis, and 2) comparing the weather-based statistical analysis with the operational rules to evaluate a flight condition of the unmanned aircraft for the performance of the mission; and generating, as output data, one or more of a mission compliance status confirming or denying compliance with the one or more operational rules for the performance of the mission, and at least one operational instruction for the unmanned aircraft.