Patent ID: 7881866

Claim:
A system aboard an aircraft, for preventing collisions with terrain, the system comprising: a collision risk detector for detecting a risk of collision of the terrain, by likening the risk of collision of the terrain after a predetermined period of forecasting to penetration of a cartographic representation of the terrain overflown stored in a database accessible from the aircraft into a deployment protection volume, the deployment protection volume being tied to the aircraft located with respect to the terrain overflown by means of an airborne locating equipment and oriented in a direction of progress of the aircraft, the deployment protection volume having a lower longitudinal profile modeling a potential trajectory comprising, as first part, an extrapolation of a trajectory followed by the aircraft, predicted on the basis of the flight information delivered by the flight equipments of the aircraft, as second part, a model of a terrain avoidance maneuver trajectory engaged over the forecast period, and a transition trajectory between the first part and the second part; a locating means for pinpointing one or more locations of the penetration of the cartographic representation of the terrain overflown on the lower longitudinal profile of the protection volume; an alert generator for producing one or more alert messages corresponding to the one or more locations of the penetration on request of the collision risk detector; and a particularization means for particularizing the alert messages emitted by the alert generator as a function of the one or more locations of the penetration.