Aircraft Conflict Zone Visualization for Predicted Trajectory Separation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing aircraft collision avoidance systems fail to effectively predict and visualize potential conflicts between aircraft, leading to a loss of separation and increased risk of collisions.
Innovation Solution
An aircraft avoidance system that determines predicted trajectories of multiple aircraft, identifies conflict zones, and renders these zones on a display for pilots, along with recommended maneuvers to regain separation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If air traffic controllers monitor aircraft location and enforce separation rules, then conflict prevention is improved, but system complexity and workload increase
Solution Approach 1:
The aircraft equips itself with an avoidance system that autonomously calculates predicted trajectories, detects conflict zones, and presents resolution maneuvers to the pilot. This self-service approach transfers the conflict detection and avoidance function from the ground-based air traffic control system to the aircraft itself, reducing the complexity burden on controllers while maintaining conflict prevention reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary avoidance system between the pilot and the complex task of conflict detection and trajectory prediction. This intermediary system handles the computational burden of calculating predicted trajectories and identifying conflict zones, allowing the pilot to focus on executing resolution maneuvers without being overwhelmed by system complexity.
2Loss of information
If predicted trajectories and conflict zones are visualized on display, then pilot awareness is improved, but display complexity and information overload increase
Solution Approach 1:
The display system uses color changes to encode conflict zone information. Conflict zones are rendered with distinct colors or color patterns that stand out from normal airspace representations, allowing pilots to quickly identify potential conflicts through color coding without requiring complex graphical interfaces or additional information processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The avoidance system applies local quality by rendering conflict zone information only in the specific areas of the display where conflicts are detected, rather than overwhelming the entire display with trajectory and conflict information. This localized rendering approach maintains pilot awareness of critical conflict zones while reducing overall display complexity and information overload.
Data Source
AI summary
An aircraft includes a display and an avoidance system. The avoidance system is configured to determine a first predicted trajectory of the aircraft, determine a second predicted trajectory of an additional aircraft, and determine a conflict zone volume based on an intersection between the first predicted trajectory and the second predicted trajectory. The conflict zone volume indicates a predicted volume of airspace in which the aircraft and the additional aircraft experience a loss of separation. The avoidance system is configured to render a conflict zone on the display based on the conflict zone volume. The rendered conflict zone graphically represents the conflict zone volume on the display.