Associate Technology Revisited: Multiple Degrees of Freedom Real Time Flight Rerouting

Unexpected threats to flight safety cause commercial and military aircraft crews to make new plans to safely complete their missions. OR Concepts Applied (ORCA) proposes to deliver algorithms that enhance traditional techniques and enable on board inflight computation of maneuvers and flight paths that take advantage of multiple degrees of freedom. During Phase I of this effort, we will present the results of a requirements analysis, a system concept that will address those requirements, and a demonstration of the feasibility of our approach. The principals of ORCA have been studying problems of inflight replanning since the mid 1980's. Our past and current research includes replanning for unexpected threats and mobile time critical targets. This SBIR effort will represent an extension and refocusing of that work. We have fielded a commercial product that can serve as a demonstration tool. Our experience in designing and building mission planning systems will help insure a robust and flexible design with a good pilot-vehicle interface. ORCA has participated in three Air Force programs particularly relevant to this topic - Pilot's Associate, War Breaker, and the Air Force Mission Support System. We bring with us a knowledge of state of the art routing algorithms as well as lessons learns from past Air Force initiatives.