
Pathlock, or the Continuous Path Regulator (CPR) is a lightweight addition to the flight navigation and control system of any autopilot. It is also useful in robotics, animatronics, and anywhere the control system needs to produce precise movement with respect to time. Given a planned trajectory such as the movement of an actuator in one dimension or a vehicle in three dimensions, CPR takes as input the current state of the machine -- position, velocity, and time -- and produces an exact mathematical simultaneous solution to match the desired position and velocity at the end of the current sample period. Unlike common control system algorithms that try to minimze an error term, CPR provides exact solutions for every sample time. CPR consists of two equations, the first solves the velocity profile for the next sample period and the second is a transfer function to convert that into the controls needed by the flight system. This allows the vehicle to stay on time, on velocity, and on position for every moment of the trajectory which is a prerequisite for accurate deconfliction of the flight path.