Patents by Inventor Christophe Caillaud

Christophe Caillaud has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20100087969
    Abstract: The invention relates to an automated system, for example an aircraft flight management system (FMS). If proposes harmonizing the response times of the FMS system between the various scenarios of one and the same family, as and when the product, and its usage context, changes. The system according to the invention comprises several subsystems, the external instruction processing time of which is variable, its response time to one and the same command being independent of the volume of internal and external data manipulated and of the future functional changes, and it is characterized in that it comprises, in each of its subsystems that have variable processing times and/or are likely to change (FPLN, NavDB, TRAJ/PRED, etc.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 9, 2008
    Publication date: April 8, 2010
    Applicant: Thales
    Inventors: Pierre Baude, Christophe Caillaud
  • Publication number: 20100042316
    Abstract: The invention relates to assistance in the navigation of an aircraft in the cruising phase, particularly in an emergency rerouting situation. The invention relates to a method of assisting in the choice of rerouting airports for an aircraft having a position P and a speed V.: generating A first list LAC—1 of airport names Ai is generated. The first list has N airport names, with i being an index between 1 and N which uniquely identifies an airport that an organization operating the aircraft chooses as a relevant destination. A number m is determined which is a minimum between a predefined number M and the number N. M airport names are presented from the first list LAC—1 to an operator of the aircraft in a predefined order.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 21, 2007
    Publication date: February 18, 2010
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventor: Christophe CAILLAUD
  • Publication number: 20090157237
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a method allowing a modification of the flight plan of an aircraft in a semi-automated manner. The invention presents the main advantage of affording the crew of an aircraft a method for aiding the rejoining of a flight plan requiring only a designation by an operator of the new active reference that he wishes to use for guiding the aircraft.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 17, 2008
    Publication date: June 18, 2009
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventors: Elias BITAR, Christophe Caillaud
  • Patent number: 7499771
    Abstract: This flight management system comprises a flight management computer plotting, during the preparation of a flight by the crew, a flight plan with branchoffs from where diversion airport joining trajectories start and which is able, automatically or otherwise, as a function of the situation encountered during the progress of the flight, to substitute for the part of the flight plan remaining to be traversed, one of the diversion airport joining trajectories scheduled during the preparation of the flight plan. It is especially useful in the cases of late change of landing runway.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 2004
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2009
    Assignee: Thales
    Inventor: Christophe Caillaud
  • Publication number: 20090055035
    Abstract: The invention relates to a navigation aid method of an aircraft comprising a step for positioning an execution order in a flight plan then in a flight path. When the order is for deferred execution, that is, comprises a condition, estimating the position of the aircraft when the condition associated with the order is satisfied, modifying the flight plan based on the estimated position according to the order, computing a new flight path based on the flight plan.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 22, 2005
    Publication date: February 26, 2009
    Inventor: Christophe Caillaud
  • Publication number: 20090045982
    Abstract: The general field of the invention is that of systems for aiding the guidance of an aircraft on an airport. The system according to the invention comprises means for determining at least one element of the topology of the airport in relation to the position of the aircraft for selecting. Selecting means are provided by the pilot of the aircraft for the element. Generating means are provided to generate at least one guidance or safety set-point using the topological element. Presenting means are provided for the element or the associated set-point on a man-machine interface to the pilot of the aircraft.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 6, 2008
    Publication date: February 19, 2009
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventors: Christophe Caillaud, Guy Deker, Nicolas Marty
  • Patent number: 7493196
    Abstract: This onboard flight management system displays on the navigation screen the plots of the flight plan parts corresponding to the navigation procedures whose names are displayed on the MCD console during the introduction by the crew of the aircraft, by means of the MCD console, of the elements allowing the FMS flight management computer to plot a flight plan. This facilitates the task of the crew when choosing navigation procedure since the plot of the flight plan part corresponding to a navigation procedure is much more expressive than the name of the procedure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2004
    Date of Patent: February 17, 2009
    Assignee: Thales
    Inventors: Christophe Caillaud, Vincent Jacquier
  • Publication number: 20080294335
    Abstract: The management system plots the route to be flown in a flight plan, at least partially, by a chaining of published navigation procedures accessible from a NavDB navigation database and constituted of sequences of waypoints and/or turn points associated with specific flight constraints. It comprises a mirror memory storing the latest versions of the published navigation procedures, modified by the crew of the aircraft during the progress of the flight plan and means of substituting these latest versions stored in the mirror memory for the published versions of the navigation procedures during a change in the route predicted in the flight plan obtained by a new chaining of navigation procedures, some of which are taken from the preceding chaining. This makes it possible, during a change of navigation procedure, to take account of specific flight constraints already entered during the progress of the flight but not appearing in the published navigation procedures.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 14, 2006
    Publication date: November 27, 2008
    Applicant: Thales
    Inventors: Elias Bitar, Stephane Leriche, Christophe Caillaud
  • Publication number: 20080155544
    Abstract: The field of the invention is that of process task failure management. The invention relates to an execution failure management method for tasks APi of a process, the process comprising a number of tasks equal to N, i denoting an index identifying the tasks and being an integer number between 1 and N, an execution of the task APi being started up according to a startup mode MDDi. According to the invention, the startup mode of the tasks APi of the process following a failure affecting a task APID depends on a history of the failures that have affected each of the tasks individually.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2007
    Publication date: June 26, 2008
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventors: Olivier Soussiel, Christophe Caillaud
  • Publication number: 20080154490
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method of calculating a path which is offset laterally by a first distance with respect to a reference path, comprising the calculation of a flight plan which is offset with respect to a reference flight plan. The reference flight plan is defined on the basis of waypoints and of segments defining a reference path between the waypoints. Each segment has a start point and an end point making it possible to define a course corresponding to the direction of travel by an aircraft. The laterally offset flight plan is calculated on the basis of waypoints associated with the waypoints of the reference flight plan, called associated points and being situated at the intersection. The laterally offset flight path includes lines, parallel with the segments of the reference flight plan, offset by the first distance from the reference flight plan. It is further defined by the bisectrix of the angle formed by two adjacent segments at a waypoint belonging to the reference path.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 21, 2007
    Publication date: June 26, 2008
    Applicant: Thales
    Inventors: Francois HOOFD, Christophe Caillaud
  • Publication number: 20080154491
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a method for selective filtering of a flight plan according to the operational needs, and it is characterized in that elements specific to the structure of the flight plan are added by the flight management system according to the nature of the elements inserted by the operator onto the flight plan, in order to determine whether these elements should or should not be taken into account for their use in the computations relating to the flight plan. This operator may, on his MMI (man-machine interface) carry out visual filterings of certain characteristic points or portions of the flight plan. This method makes it possible to add elements to a flight plan without modifying its essence and above all the maneuvers that are associated therewith.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 7, 2007
    Publication date: June 26, 2008
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventors: Elias BITAR, Stephane Leriche, Christophe Caillaud
  • Publication number: 20080086243
    Abstract: Flight management systems can behave erratically when the distance measurements on which they are based are subject to value jumps because they liken these value jumps to movements of the aircraft performed at speeds exceeding the performance levels of the aircraft for which they were designed. To avoid this, the proposed flight management system uses a filter to spread the distance value jumps in time, over periods of the order of those needed for the aircraft to come through the distance differences that they represent. This filter replaces a value jump with a ramp making up the difference and corresponding to a movement that remains within the performance scope of the aircraft.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 3, 2007
    Publication date: April 10, 2008
    Applicant: Thales
    Inventors: Christophe Caillaud, Guy Deker, Francois Hoofd
  • Publication number: 20080059058
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a method for changing the path followed by an aircraft, the aircraft initially following a predefined path on the basis of a sequence of waypoints, the method allowing a subsequent return of the aircraft to the predefined path in the same direction or in the reverse direction. The method allows a possible return of the aircraft to the predefined path in the same direction such that the waypoints of the predefined path are projected onto a new path according to a projection function ensuring that the order of the sequence of the projected image points complies with the order of the sequence of the original waypoints. The projection of a waypoint already reached by the aircraft also is considered as having been reached. The projections of the waypoints on the new path are considered reached by the aircraft progressively as the latter progresses along the new path.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 24, 2007
    Publication date: March 6, 2008
    Applicant: Thales
    Inventors: Christophe Caillaud, Guy Deker
  • Publication number: 20070233331
    Abstract: A method for assisting in verifying the path of an aircraft comprising a step of computing a path by means of a flight management computer, based on lateral constraints originating from a navigation database, characterized in that it comprises a step consisting in assisting the pilot to verify that the computed path complies with the lateral constraints in order to improve safety.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 26, 2005
    Publication date: October 4, 2007
    Inventor: Christophe Caillaud
  • Publication number: 20070225876
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method of changing the approach procedure of an aircraft comprising steps of selecting a new landing runway of the destination airport and of selecting a landing aid system or non-precision approach procedure associated with this runway. The selection steps comprise an automatic selection of a pair associating the new landing runway with the landing aid system or with the non-precision approach procedure, the pair originating from a database containing the pairs related to the destination airport.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 28, 2005
    Publication date: September 27, 2007
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventors: Christophe Caillaud, Guy Deker
  • Publication number: 20070050098
    Abstract: This flight management system comprises a flight management computer plotting, during the preparation of a flight by the crew, a flight plan with branchoffs from where diversion airport joining trajectories start and which is able, automatically or otherwise, as a function of the situation encountered during the progress of the flight, to substitute for the part of the flight plan remaining to be traversed, one of the diversion airport joining trajectories scheduled during the preparation of the flight plan. It is especially useful in the cases of late change of landing runway.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 29, 2004
    Publication date: March 1, 2007
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventor: Christophe Caillaud
  • Publication number: 20060142904
    Abstract: This onboard flight management system displays on the navigation screen the plots of the flight plan parts corresponding to the navigation procedures whose names are displayed on the MCD console during the introduction by the crew of the aircraft, by means of the MCD console, of the elements allowing the FMS flight management computer to plot a flight plan. This facilitates the task of the crew when choosing navigation procedure since the plot of the flight plan part corresponding to a navigation procedure is much more expressive than the name of the procedure.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 20, 2004
    Publication date: June 29, 2006
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventors: Christophe Caillaud, Vincent Jacquier