Patent ID: 8396617
Filing Date: 2013-03-12
Classification: G05D

Abstract:
1. An assistance method for lateral control of an aircraft (A) upon an approach phase to a landing runway for a landing, wherein, during aircraft (A) flight upon the approach to the landing runway, automatically and repetitively via an onboard calculation unit, the sequence of following successive operations is performed, comprising: a) determining via the calculation unit a current drift angle (DA) of the aircraft (A); b) calculating via the calculation unit a current drift velocity of the aircraft (A) based at least in part on the current drift angle (DA) being determined at step a); c) calculating via the calculation unit a prediction of a lateral drift of the aircraft (A) based at least in part on the current drift velocity being calculated at step b) and a prediction time; d) comparing via the calculation unit such lateral drift to a threshold value; e) monitoring via the calculation unit the variation of the drift angle of the aircraft (A); f) predicting via the calculation unit a runway lateral excursion when, simultaneously: at step d), the lateral drift is higher than the threshold value; and at step e), the drift angle grows; and g) in the case of a prediction of runway lateral excursion, emitting an alarm signal for an operator of the aircraft (A), wherein the prediction time T is calculated through the following expression: wherein: L is half the width of the landing runway.