Patent ID: 8864081

Claim:
A method for optimized energy management of an aircraft upon a flight along a predetermined trajectory, the method allowing the aircraft to join a given point of the trajectory in a given energy state, with a given position of slats and flaps of the aircraft, and with a given position of landing gear of the aircraft, the method comprising: (a) determining a plurality of current parameter values of the aircraft; (b) determining a plurality of optimized command orders, which allow the aircraft to reach the given point in the given energy state, by performing the following operations in an iterative way: (b1) predicting an energy profile corresponding to a set of command orders based on the current parameter values and one or more predetermined models; (b2) calculating an energy error for the predicted energy profile; (b3) if the energy error is not stabilized, performing the following operations in an iterative way: calculating one or more corrections to be applied to the set of command orders; updating the set of command orders based on the corrections; and repeating at least steps (b1) and (b2) with the updated set of command orders; and (b4) if the energy error is stabilized and minimized, using the set of command orders as the optimized command orders in step (c) below; and (c) applying the optimized command orders to an automatic slats and flaps command device and an automatic landing gear command device for automatic control of the slats and flaps and the landing gear, respectively.