Patent ID: 8612132

Claim:
A method for detecting potential collisions by an aircraft, the aircraft equipped with at least one sensor configured to supply data used to determine a distance and angle of an object detected by said sensor relative to a reference location of the aircraft, the method comprising: determining, by a processing circuit, a first set of points for obstacles detected by the at least one sensor; determining a union set of points as the union of the first sets of points; determining a detection mode for detecting potential collisions based on at least the speed of the aircraft and a guiding mode of the aircraft; determining a set of transformed points by applying a transformation to the union set of points, wherein the transformation is selected based on the determined detection mode, the transformation used to obtain the set of transformed points by adjusting the union set of points radially toward the reference location of the aircraft when the aircraft moves at a speed above a threshold speed; calculating at least one protective envelope around the reference location of the aircraft based on the determined detection mode; and detecting a potential collision based on whether a transformed point is within a protective envelope.