A system for predicting head movements by an aircrew member, such as a pilot flying a tactical aircraft, from input data which includes an ongoing record of head positions. The input is without head acceleration or velocity input data and is applied to a Least Mean Square prediction algorithm. The disclosure also includes an improved data dependent convergence algorithm for the prediction system, an algorithm shown to provide rapid convergence to the final prediction output. Use of the predictio...

A method and system for controlling transitions between attitude command/response and rate command/response in an aircraft control system wherein the transfer function for a generic second order system is developed at current operating conditions and a predetermined constant damping. During a transition, trim follow-up frequency is changed progressively to coincide with the desired bandwidth, thereby effecting a pole-zero cancellation and converting the transfer function to that of a rate comman...

A differential satellite positioning system is configured to include a plurality of satellite positioning system receivers in spatial proximity of one another for determining independent pseudo range values which are processed in accordance with a selected averaging scheme for determining highly reliable satellite differential corrections.

A spare voice channel on a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) is used to record flight data. Data from an accelerometer and other sensors in an aircraft are digitized and collected by a microprocessor once each second and are collated and arranged in an industry standard format, and an encoder converts the formatted data into an industry standard code for recording on the CVR. During transmission of data to the CVR, fresh data is collected for the next transmission.

A fail safe GPS system for an aircraft moving along a desired trajectory within vertical and horizontal limits using first and second redundant GPS receivers a first of which is connected to the avionics equipment of the aircraft and to an alarm and the second of which is connected only to the alarm so that if a malfunction in the flight management system occurs both GPS's will cause the alarm and if a malfunction in the first GPS system occurs, so that the aircraft exceeds the vertical or horiz...

A self test avionics equipment is provided for use on an aircraft as part of a traffic collision avoidance system. The equipment has a radio frequency (RF) section and an integral test system. The RF section has an input/output unit, a transmitter and a receiver. The input/output unit has a local oscillator with a directional coupler, a two-way divider connected to the coupler, and an attenuator connected through a modulator to the coupler. The mixer and two-way divider each have an output coupl...

A recorder for recording and playing back information. The recorder is particularly useful in vehicles such as aircraft and space vehicles. The recorder has no moving parts and has a plurality of power levels. The recorder has the capability of detecting errors in its memory and to avoid using portions of the memory that have errors. The recorder has multiple channels that can be programmed for input or output use. On demand memory assignment capability permits maximum use of the memory array.

Disclosed herein is a method of matching engine torques in a power management system having a digital engine control for each of multiple turbine engines. Input data is selected from one source such that each digital engine control utilizes the same set of input data to generate torque commands. As a result, engine torques can be matched to within one percent.

A system for detecting and resolving conflicts between a plurality of aircraft or other objects on potentially conflicting trajectories in space. A two-dimensional graph generated on a processor-controlled display depicts the trajectory of one of the aircraft and creates particles that have identical velocity as the particular aircraft of interest. Each particle is at a different initial position from all other particles (in the sense of mathematical physics, a field is defined). That is, motion...

A low altitude radio altimeter of the FM/CW type which transmits a sawtooth frequency wave and has a transmitting and a receiving aerial. A beat frequency signal Fb.sub.t between the transmitted and received waves is produced at the output of a mixer. The altimeter includes means for digitizing Fb.sub.t at the rate of n samples per sawtooth, a first memory (M1) to store n.times.k samples S.sub.j.sup.i (where i varies from 1 to k and j varies from 1 to n), a second memory (M2) to store n sums ##E...