Abstract: A flight management system of an aircraft is provided allowing notably the calculation of a trajectory over the terrestrial globe. The calculation of a trajectory is carried out with respect to a true North, true North being a navigation term referring to the direction of the geographical North pole with respect to a given position. When the current or estimated position of the aircraft is level with the pole, it then becomes impossible to define true North, true North being defined in all the directions or in no direction, depending on the calculation facilities used. The flight management system makes it possible to use a single calculation procedure whatever the current position or the position to be reached of the aircraft on the terrestrial globe.

Abstract: One embodiment of the invention is directed to a method including constructing a path-distance oracle that provides both an intermediate vertex of a shortest path between two vertices in a spatial network and an approximate distance between the two vertices. The constructing comprises decomposing the spatial network into a set of path-coherent pairs (PCPs) that satisfy at least one predefined property.

Abstract: The invention discloses an intelligent navigation method comprising the following steps of: (a) defining a system circle based on a current position and a target position; (b) searching a plurality of paths between the current position and the target position from the system circle; (c) for each path, calculating a total of directional paths and a total of path-influenced factors; (d) summing up the total of directional paths and the total of path-influenced factors for each path to obtain a plurality of summations; and (e) selecting a path corresponding to the minimum of all summations to be the optimal path.

Abstract: The present invention relates to image satellite planning, and more particularly to a method for allowing a deeper search for high value targets in a time-limited planning environment. In an exemplary embodiment, a method of computing an ordered subset of targets includes using an approximation for the time needed for the satellite to re-orient to a new target, rather than calculating each maneuver time between targets. By approximating the maneuver time rather than calculating it, the calculation time is reduced. Each iteration through the traveling salesman problem takes less time, and more iterations can be accomplished between imaging windows. The iterative process can search deeper into the traveling salesman problem to find a better solution.