Flight Segment Identification as a Basis for Pilot Advisory Systems
Wallace E. Kelly, John H. Painter · Journal of Aircraft · 2006
Flight segment identification is the process of monitoring aircraft state variables and flight events to identify in real time the phase of flight or operational procedure of an aircraft. It is a dynamic classification problem in which the state space is highly dimensional and the boundaries between the various flight phases are not crisply defined. Examples of flight segments include enroute cruise, holding, and initial approach. We explain the role of flight segment identification in building pilot advisory systems, including a new distinction that we propose between state-based flight segment identification and procedural flight segment identification. State-based flight segment identification uses the aircraft state variables to infer the flight operation currently being executed by the pilot. Procedural flight segment identification tracks the flight operation that the pilot should be executing now, based on events and flight rules that are largely outside the control of the pilot. We present one approach to performing flight segment identification based on fuzzy sets and how we applied this solution to the NASA high volume operations concept. Finally, we discuss our results and conclusions from recent flight tests of a flight segment identifier.