To minimise the impact of adverse conditions (wind gusts, wind shear and wake vortices etc.) on the flight performance, automated flight control systems and evasion-manoeuvre methods are developed. The requirements for forward-looking on-board sensors to detect such hazards shall be specified and the feasibility to produce the novel sensors shall be elaborated. This particular work will be conducted in collaboration with EADS – Innovation Works who possesses a prototype airborne gust sensor.
To support pilot decision making, an integrated flight control system IRLIS (Integrated Ride and Loads Improvement System) will be developed, to improve flight characteristics, and reduce strain on pilots, passengers and aircraft in extreme atmospheric motions. IRLIS will also generate tactical avoidance manoeuvres to enable the pilot to circumnavigate atmospheric hazards. This work requires the development and validation of mathematical models of the relevant physics and principles of close-to- reality simulations. The developed procedures and systems will be tested in flight simulators and during flight tests and assessed by pilots.
Another aspect is to increase the situational awareness of flight crew and controllers in a way that both parties have the same information about potential weather hazards in order to come to unambiguous and collaborative decisions. New pilot displays and assistance tools will be conceptually derived and developed in order to uplink the necessary data to the cockpit which are available in the ITWS on ground and to display them together with data from on-board systems.