Aircraft Descent Rate Monitoring with Model-Specific Alert Thresholds
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems struggle to efficiently process and derive meaningful information from the vast volume of flight data broadcast by ADS-B, particularly in managing rapid descents and maneuvers without knowledge of aircraft mass, engine model, or local ambient temperature, which are not included in current ADS-B data.
Innovation Solution
A flight data processing system that calculates aircraft-specific descent rate threshold values based on maximum takeoff weight, operating empty weight, and performance databases, independently of temperature variations, to identify aggressive descents and provide real-time alerts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If brute-force approach is used to process massive ADS-B data continuously, then data processing completeness is improved, but bandwidth consumption and processing resource usage increase prohibitively
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and processes only the most critical descent rate parameters from the massive ADS-B data stream, rather than processing all flight data. By focusing specifically on vertical rate information and comparing it against aircraft-specific thresholds, the system achieves effective monitoring with minimal data processing requirements, thereby resolving the contradiction between processing completeness and resource consumption
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies aircraft-specific descent rate thresholds tailored to each aircraft's mass, engine model, and performance characteristics. Instead of using uniform processing rules for all aircraft, the system customizes monitoring parameters for each aircraft type, enabling efficient processing while maintaining high detection accuracy for aggressive descents specific to each aircraft's capabilities
2Measurement precision
If aircraft-specific descent rate thresholds are calculated and used, then descent classification accuracy is improved, but data storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent pre-calculates and stores descent rate thresholds for each aircraft type based on its mass, engine model, and performance data before runtime operations. By performing this computation in advance and storing only the resulting threshold values rather than raw performance data, the system achieves high descent classification accuracy while minimizing data storage requirements during actual monitoring operations
Data Source
AI summary
A system that includes an ingress module arranged to receive flight data having a descent rate value and an altitude value. The system also has a data store with descent rate threshold values of at least one aircraft model. The descent rate threshold values are associated, in the data store, with pressure altitude values. The system also includes a descent classification module that is operably coupled to the ingress module and the data store. The descent classification module is adapted to compare the descent rate value with the descent rate threshold values. The system additionally includes an alert module adapted to provide, in response to the descent classification module comparing the descent rate value that exceeds at least one of the descent rate threshold values, an alert signal to a graphic user interface that is operably coupled to the alert module.