DLR Projekt Wetter und Fliegen Wake Impact Attenuation and Avoidance Systems - Conceptual Design for Operation and Human Machine Interface

Kurzfassung

One of the aims of the DLR-project "Wetter und Fliegen" is to develop and analyse new flight control and guidance functions in order to avoid or to mitigate the impact of wake vortex encounters. Two strategies are addressed in the project: One is an automatic impact attenuation system detecting that the aircraft is flying through a wake vortex and counteracting the effects of the wake encounter by giving corresponding commands to the flight control system. The other system detects that the aircraft flight path will cross a wake vortex in the near future and calculates an evasion trajectory. The corresponding evasion manoeuvre to avoid wake vortex encounter may be flown manually by the pilot or automatically by the aircraft autopilot. A concept for the human machine interface is presented in this report for both system approaches. It deals also with the operational aspects of such systems from "a cockpit point of view". As flight tests within the project are planned with the A320-ATRA research aircraft future systems have to be integrated in an "Airbus-like" cockpit environment. Therefore it is assumed that the Wake Vortex Impact Attenuation and Evasion systems are additional functions of a conventional Airbus A320 flight control and guidance system. Design of the human machine interface is influenced by existing systems like TCAS, wind shear protection function and flight envelope protections. A main source of information for this report was the A320 Flight Crew Operating Manual and designs developed in the European project FLYSAFE. The report starts with a short overview of the conventional A320 indicating displays in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3 operational concept and displays of the Wake Impact Attenuation System are explained. This is followed by an operational description and indications of the Wake Avoidance System in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 draws some conclusions about the design concept presented in this report. Appendix A lists all sections of the Flight Crew Operations Manual affected by the intergration of a Wake Vortex Impact Attenuation and a Wake Avoidance System. An example of a lateral evasion manoeuvre activated by the Wake Avoidance System is illustrated and explained in Appendix B.