Patent ID: 6134500
Filing Date: 2000-10-17
Classification: G05D,G06Q

Abstract:
A method for generating a minimum-cost airline flight plan from a point of origin through a plurality of fix points to a destination point, comprising the steps of:storing in at least one database navigation data, including a plurality of fix points, aircraft performance data, operational flight data, a plurality of flight planning altitudes, and weather data;constructing a two-dimensional rectangular macro region bounded by a normal to the great circle route between the point of origin and the destination point, where the normal intersects the origin, a normal to the great circle route intersecting the destination, a first horizontal bound perpendicular to said normals and located a specified distance from the great circle route, and a second horizontal bound parallel to the first bound and located an equal distance from the great circle route as the first bound;transforming each point in the plurality of fix points from a point on a Cartesian plane to a point, expressed as an ordered pair of an x-value and a y-value, on an alternate coordinate system where the origin of the alternate coordinate system is the point of origin of the flight and the destination point of the flight is on one of the axes of the alternate coordinate system;determining a two-dimensional feasible region within the macro region;constructing a feasible acyclic network which includes only those arcs of a first acyclic network of the macro region which lie within said feasible region and outside of flight restricted areas; andgenerating a minimum-cost flight plan from the point of origin through said plurality of fix points to the destination point.