Flight reconfiguration system – an emergency system of the future

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to describe the idea and partial result of research on flight reconfiguration system (FRS) which is to be used in case of pilot incapacitation while performing the single-pilot operations for defining and guiding an aircraft to a safe destination. Design/methodology/approach Multiple problems with the development of emergency systems which could deal with crisis on-board occurs, e.g. definition of emergency destination which is dealing with the thread, ensuring that route to an emergency destination is safe, avoiding of air traffic and making sure that aircraft performance limitations would not be exceeded. FRS is a sophisticated hardware design, gathering data from aircraft on-board systems, commanding autopilot where to go and informing air traffic on crisis on-board. Developed algorithm analyzes data from onboard systems, internal database to calculate potential safe places and best routes to them. Multi-criteria decision-making is used to choose the best of them and execute it when needed. Findings Algorithms and hardware were tested in a simulated environment. An exemplary research experiment oriented on finding emergency destination and flying to it in the Software-In-The-Loop environment was presented. Research limitations/implications Currently, the use of the system is limited to use on-board of well-equipped CS-23 class aircraft and is limited to use in good weather conditions. Practical implications The use of FRS will in case of emergency constitute a new category of emergency maneuver, used for dealing with no-human pilot available on-board situations – autonomous emergency destination finding and route execution. Originality/value This study helps in the introduction of multi-stage decision-making to autonomously reconfigure route.