Patent ID: 8090531
Filing Date: 2012-01-03
Classification: G01C,G05D

Abstract:
1. A method for assisting an aircraft to rejoin a flight plan, the flight plan defining a path to be followed by the aircraft so as to link a departure airport AD to a destination airport AA, the flight plan being composed of a number N of segments LEG i , a flight segment LEG i being identified by an index i lying between 1 and N, the index i defining an order of the segment LEG i in the flight plan, the flight segment LEG i being defined by a departure end (waypoint WPT i−1 ) and by an arrival end (WPT i ), WPT 0 corresponding to a geographical departure position AD, WPT N being a geographical arrival position AA, a waypoint WPT i being removed from the flight plan once the aircraft has passed through the waypoint WPT i , in a navigation mode termed “managed mode”, the aircraft steering towards a waypoint whose index is a minimum, the aircraft having momentarily left the managed mode and having deviated from the flight plan after passing through a waypoint WPT p−1 , the aircraft occupying a position PPOS and seeking to rejoin the flight plan so as to follow the flight plan in the managed mode, where p is the index of the waypoint corresponding to an upstream end of a current active LEG, the method comprising: a step of evaluating a separation distance D a step of determining auxiliary indices k lying between p+1 and N−1 for which a separation distance D a step of determining a rejoining index k