FACT:An Air-Ground Communication Framework for Seeding Quality Control of Aircraft

A new type of air-ground communication application framework named FACT(framework for air-ground communication technology with weather-modification aircraft)is presented to track and command weather-modification aircraft to perform ideal cloud seeding.FACT provides a set of solutions from three perspectives,namely,onboard,onground and air-to-ground,with the core purpose of solving the problems of the rapid exchange of information,contract analysis and identifying potential seeding areas when flight plans and meteorological conditions change.On board,the observed data are processed centrally and transmitted downward through air-to-ground communication.The real-time application and sharing of aircraft detection data are strengthened on the ground,and potential areas of operation are automatically identified based on ground data.The communication between the air and the ground achieves a technical breakthrough by realizing double satellite links,adaptive data transmission and VPN channel encryption.Additionally,an application based on FACT is designed and implemented for the real-time command of weather-modified aircraft.This approach has become the key air-to-ground communication system support for more than 40 Chinese aircraft and the big data service support center of airborne data to ensure improved operation of weather-modification aircraft in China.

Identification and standardization of maneuvers based upon operational flight data

To find a way of loads analysis from operational flight data for advanced aircraft,maneuver identification and standardization jobs are conducted in this paper. For thousands of sorties from one aircraft, after studying the flight attitude when performing actions, the start and end time of the maneuvers can be determined. According to those time points, various types of maneuvers during the flight are extracted in the form of multi-parameters time histories. By analyzing the numerical range and curve shape of those parameters, a characteristic data library is established to model all types of maneuvers. Based on this library, a computer procedure using pattern-recognition theory is programmed to conduct automatic maneuver identification with high accuracy. In that way, operational loads are classified according to maneuver type. For a group of identified maneuvers of the same type, after the processes of time normalization, trace shifting, as well as averaging and smoothing, the idealization standard time history of each maneuver type is established.Finally, the typical load statuses are determined successfully based on standard maneuvers. The proposed method of maneuver identification and standardization is able to derive operational loads effectively, and might be applied to monitoring loads in Individual Aircraft Tracking Program（IATP）.