Aircraft Terrain Display Real-Time Data Correction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing aircraft display systems face data integrity and processing issues with computer-generated terrain data, leading to visual disparities and operator errors, particularly during critical flight phases like take-offs and landings, due to high computational workload and latency caused by large terrain data processing.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that enhance terrain visibility by using a processing unit to perform real-time correction and augmentation of terrain data with higher precision localized data from onboard sensors and ground stations, employing predictive data loading to minimize latency and ensure accurate display of critical terrain features like runways.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If high resolution terrain data is provided continuously to the onboard graphics display processor, then steady three-dimensional perspective view images of terrain are produced, but the computational workload becomes excessively heavy and causes significant latency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the continuous terrain data processing into discrete patches that are loaded and processed separately. This segmentation allows the system to manage computational workload in manageable units, reducing overall processing latency while maintaining continuous display updates.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary loading of terrain data patches into memory before they are needed for display. By pre-loading and pre-processing terrain data in the background, the system minimizes latency during critical display updates while maintaining steady three-dimensional perspective views.
2Loss of time
If terrain data is loaded in real-time, then processing latency is reduced, but significant discontinuities and instabilities occur with display data from regions close to borders of previously loaded data
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple terrain data patches together with overlapping regions. By combining adjacent patches with proper blending at borders, the system eliminates visual discontinuities and instabilities while maintaining real-time loading capabilities, ensuring smooth continuous terrain display.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts the loading and blending of terrain data patches based on aircraft position and movement. This dynamic approach ensures that patches are loaded and merged in real-time without causing display discontinuities, maintaining both low latency and visual stability.
3Area of stationary object
If the entire globe terrain data is stored in the onboard database, then complete terrain coverage is available, but the database becomes unmanageably large and data verification becomes practically impossible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements local quality by storing complete high-resolution terrain data only for regions relevant to the aircraft's current and predicted flight path, while using lower-resolution or summarized data for other regions. This approach maintains comprehensive effective coverage while dramatically reducing database size and management complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system loads terrain data partially, only for the specific geographic regions needed based on aircraft position and flight plan. By loading only the necessary portions of terrain data rather than the entire globe, the system achieves adequate coverage with manageable database requirements.
4Productivity
If simple or continuous-level of detail computation techniques are used to reduce computational workload, then processing speed improves, but data precision and terrain detail are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs dynamic level-of-detail computation that adjusts terrain detail based on the aircraft's distance from terrain features. When the aircraft is close to terrain, high precision data is used; when farther away, lower detail is sufficient. This dynamic approach maintains processing speed while preserving terrain precision where needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies different levels of terrain detail quality to different geographic regions based on their importance to the current flight operation. Critical regions near the aircraft's path receive high-precision processing, while distant regions use simpler computation, optimizing both speed and precision locally.
Data Source
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AI summary
A system and method are disclosed for enhancing the visibility and ensuring the correctness of terrain and navigation information on aircraft displays, such as, for example, continuous, three-dimensional perspective view aircraft displays conformal to the visual environment. More specifically, an aircraft display system is disclosed that includes a processing unit, a navigation system, a database for storing high resolution terrain data, a graphics display generator, and a visual display. One or more independent, higher precision databases with localized position data, such as navigation data or position data is onboard. Also, one or more onboard vision sensor systems associated with the navigation system provides real-time spatial position data for display, and one or more data links is available to receive precision spatial position data from ground-based stations. Essentially, before terrain and navigational objects (e.g., runways) are displayed, a real-time correction and augmentation of the terrain data is performed for those regions that are relevant and/or critical to flight operations, in order to ensure that the correct terrain data is displayed with the highest possible integrity. These corrections and augmentations performed are based upon higher precision, but localized onboard data, such as navigational object data, sensor data, or up-linked data from ground stations. Whenever discrepancies exist, terrain data having a lower integrity can be corrected in real-time using data from a source having higher integrity data. A predictive data loading approach is used, which substantially reduces computational workload and thus enables the processing unit to perform such augmentation and correction operations in real-time.