Aircraft steering angle determination

1 . A method of determining a steering angle of an aircraft landing gear on an aircraft, the method comprising:

obtaining an image of the aircraft landing gear, wherein the image is obtained by an imaging device located on a part of the aircraft with a view of the aircraft landing gear;

performing edge detection on the image;

determining, based at least in part on an edge obtained by the edge detection, a relative position of a component of the aircraft landing gear in the image, wherein the relative position is a position of the component of the aircraft landing gear in the image relative to a position of a fixed component of the aircraft landing gear, a part of the aircraft separate to the aircraft landing gear, or a part of a landing gear bay of the aircraft, or relative to the imaging device;

determining, based at least in part on the relative position of the component, the steering angle of the aircraft landing gear;

determining whether the steering angle is at a maximum steering angle, and

in response to the determination that the steering angle is at the maximum steering angle, preventing increasing the steering angle while the steering angle is at the maximum steering angle.

2 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising obtaining the image of the aircraft landing gear using an imaging device.

3 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein the determining the relative position of the component comprises determining, based at least in part on the edge obtained by the edge detection, a position of the component of the aircraft landing gear relative to the imaging device.

4 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising determining a region of disinterest of the image, the region of disinterest comprising part of the image in which the component is not expected to be present in normal operation, and applying a mask to the image to remove the region of disinterest from the image.

5 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

determining a region of interest of the image, the region of interest comprising part of the image in which the component is located; and

selecting a portion of the region of interest;

wherein the performing edge detection on the image comprises performing edge detection on only the portion of the region of interest.

6 . The method according to claim 5 , further comprising performing contour detection on the image to determine the region of interest.

7 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the component of the aircraft landing gear comprises a tire.

8 . The method according to claim 7 , wherein the tire comprises a tread, and the method further comprises:

the determining, based at least in part on the edge obtained by the edge detection, the relative position of the component includes determining a relative angle of the tread as shown in the image relative to a showing in the image of the fixed component of the aircraft landing gear, the part of the aircraft separate to the aircraft landing gear, or the part of a landing gear bay of the aircraft, or relative to the imaging device; and

the determining the steering angle of the aircraft landing gear is based on at least in part on the relative angle of the tread.

9 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising determining the relative position of the component of the aircraft landing gear by applying a Hough transform to the edge obtained by the edge detection.

10 . The method according claim 1 , further comprising applying a filter to greyscale the image.

11 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising applying gamma correction to the image.

12 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising applying a threshold to the image.

13 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the component comprises a reference mark, and the determining the relative position of the component further comprises determining, based at least in part on the edge obtained by the edge detection, the relative position of the component using an image of the reference mark in the image.

14 . An aircraft controller configured to:

obtain an image of an aircraft landing gear, wherein the image captured by an imaging device located on a part of an aircraft with a view of the aircraft landing gear;

perform edge detection on the image;

determine, based at least in part on an edge obtained by the edge detection, a relative position of a component of the aircraft landing gear in the image, wherein the relative position of the component of the aircraft landing gear in the image relative to a position of: a fixed component of the aircraft landing gear, a part of the aircraft separate to the aircraft landing gear or a part of a landing gear bay of the aircraft, or relative to the imaging device;

determine, based at least in part on the relative position of the component, the steering angle of the aircraft landing gear;

determine whether the steering angle is at a maximum steering angle, and

in response to the determination that the steering angle is at the maximum steering angle, prevent increasing the steering angle while the steering angle is at the maximum steering angle.

15 . An aircraft comprising the aircraft controller according to claim 14 .

16 . A system for determining a steering angle of an aircraft landing gear on an aircraft, the system comprising:

an imaging device located on a part of the aircraft with a view of the aircraft landing gear; and

an aircraft controller configured to:

obtain an image of the aircraft landing gear from the at least one imaging device;

perform edge detection on the image;

determine, based at least in part on an edge obtained by the edge detection, a relative position of a component of the aircraft landing gear in the image, wherein the relative position of the component of the aircraft landing gear in the image relative to a position of a fixed component of the aircraft landing gear, a part of the aircraft separate to the aircraft landing gear or a part of a landing gear bay of the aircraft, or relative to the imaging device;

determine, based at least in part on the relative position of the component, the steering angle of the aircraft landing gear;

determine whether the steering angle is at a maximum steering angle, and

in response to the determination that the steering angle is at the maximum steering angle, prevent increasing the steering angle while the steering angle is at the maximum steering angle.

17 . The system according to claim 16 , wherein the imaging device comprises a first imaging device and a second imaging device, wherein the first imaging device and the second imaging device are different types of imaging device.

18 . The system according to claim 17 , wherein the first imaging device comprises a camera and the second imaging device comprises a lidar sensor.

19 . A method of identifying an aircraft steering angle, the method comprising:

obtaining an image of an aircraft landing gear assembly using an imaging device located on a part of an aircraft with a view of at least a portion of the aircraft landing gear assembly;

performing image processing on the image to determine an image feature, the image feature associated with a first aircraft component of the landing gear assembly;

identifying, based at least in part on the image feature, a position of the first component of the landing gear assembly relative to a second component of the landing gear assembly;

identifying, based at least in part on the identified position, the aircraft steering angle;

determining whether the steering angle is at a maximum steering angle, and

in response to the determination that the steering angle is at the maximum steering angle, preventing increasing the steering angle while the steering angle is at the maximum steering angle.

20 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by an aircraft controller, cause the aircraft controller to carry out the method according to claim 1 .

21 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the performing edge detection on the image includes performing a Canny, Sobel, Prewitt or Roberts edge detection.