Patent ID: 11955018
Assignee: SMARTSKY NETWORKS LLC
Field: Control (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A method for managing aircraft within an airspace, the method comprising:
acquiring electronic data describing a plurality of trajectories each representing respective aircraft or obstacles within an airspace;
defining a best path for an aircraft associated with a selected one of the trajectories, the best path maintaining a predefined separation to others of the trajectories into the future along the best path;
communicating the best path to the aircraft associated with the selected one of the trajectories for execution by the aircraft;
responsive to the best path being flown for a selected time interval, recalculating each of the trajectories and defining a new best path for the selected one of the trajectories; and
repeating the recalculating and definition of the new best path each time the selected time interval passes until a destination of the best path is reached,
wherein the best path is selected from a four dimensional hypercone defining possible future flight paths for the aircraft, and
wherein the four dimensional hypercone is represented with a charge distributed over a volume of the four dimensional hypercone to repel other trajectories, each of which also includes a corresponding charge associated therewith to maintain the predefined separation.