Towards a Wake Encounter Advisory & Avoidance System – Recent work at DLR

Abstract

In the framework of the internal project "Wetter und Fliegen" (Weather and Flying) DLR is working on a Wake Encounter Advisory & Avoidance (WEAA) system to allow the pilot to avoid potentially dangerous wake vortex encounters by a tactical evasion manoeuvre. Such manoeuvre is of small scale i.e. tries to adhere to the planned flight track as closely as possible and is not intended to require ATC permission. Work on the system is on-going with a larger time horizon but initial results will be presented: the system conceptual design and selected system functions such as wake vortex prediction and hazard evaluation, avoidance trajectory generation, and human machine interface to raise the pilots' situational awareness.