Application of Evidential Reasoning to Helicopter Flight Path Control
This addresses uncertainty in low-altitude flight navigation for military helicopters, but appears incremental as it builds on existing evidential reasoning methods.
The paper tackled the problem of reasoning under uncertainty for real-time helicopter guidance in hostile environments by developing the Sum-and-Lattice-Points Method, an extension of evidential reasoning, and tested it in a prototype expert system.
This paper presents a methodology for research and development of the inferencing and knowledge representation aspects of an Expert System approach for performing reasoning under uncertainty in support of a real time vehicle guidance and navigation system. Such a system could be of major benefit for non-terrain following low altitude flight systems operating in foreign hostile environments such as might be experienced by NOE helicopter or similar mission craft. An innovative extension of the evidential reasoning methodology, termed the Sum-and-Lattice-Points Method, has been developed. The research and development effort presented in this paper consists of a formal mathematical development of the Sum-and-Lattice-Points Method, its formulation and representation in a parallel environment, prototype software development of the method within an expert system, and initial testing of the system within the confines of the vehicle guidance system.