Airport Surface Incursion Alerting via Dynamic Distance Calculation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Despite advancements in avionics technologies, situational awareness of the runway environment remains a significant safety issue due to airport complexity, approach patterns, airborne and surface traffic, and on-time departure/arrival pressures, leading to potential runway incursion hazards.
Innovation Solution
A surface awareness and warning system that includes a navigation data source, airport surface data source, and a surface alert generator to provide visual, aural, and tactile alerts to pilots, determining alert distances and times based on ownship position and airport surface data, using trigonometric functions and alert thresholds to generate caution and warning alerts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional incursion alerting systems use fixed distance thresholds, then the system is simple to operate, but it fails to account for varying ground speeds and approach angles, reducing alerting accuracy
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts alert distances based on the aircraft's ground speed and approach angle. Instead of using fixed thresholds, the alert distance is calculated as a function of these varying parameters, allowing the system to adapt to different taxiing conditions and maintain accurate alerting across diverse operational scenarios
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the alert distance parameter based on variations in ground speed and approach angle. By making the alert distance a variable parameter rather than a constant, the system achieves higher measurement precision while the computational complexity remains manageable through straightforward mathematical relationships
2Reliability
If the system provides multiple types of alerts (visual, aural, tactile), then pilot situational awareness is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The alert system is segmented into distinct output modalities (visual, aural, tactile), each handled by separate presentation components. This allows the system to provide comprehensive situational awareness through multiple channels while maintaining modular architecture that manages complexity through functional separation
Solution Approach 2:
The alert generation system serves multiple functions by providing different types of alerts through different presentation modalities. A single alert generation logic can trigger multiple types of presentations, making the system multi-functional and improving reliability through redundant information channels
3Measurement precision
If the system calculates alert distances using trigonometric functions of approach angles, then alerting precision is improved, but computational complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses trigonometric functions to transform the approach angle parameter into an adjusted alert distance. This mathematical transformation maintains high measurement precision by accurately accounting for angular variations, while the computational burden remains acceptable due to the straightforward nature of the trigonometric calculations
Data Source
AI summary
Present novel and non-trivial system, apparatus, and method for generating at least one airport surface incursion alert in a runway awareness and warning system are disclosed. A navigation data source and an airport surface data source provide navigation data and airport surface data to a surface alert generator (“SAG”). The SAG constructs a reference line based upon the airport surface data (e.g., landing threshold points, taxiway hold short lines, etc. . . . ), constructs a ground track line, determines at least one alert distance to an alert point along the ground track line if there is a reference line converging on and intersecting with the ground track line to form an alert point, and generates surface alert data if an alert time to the alert point meets an alert threshold time. The surface alert data is provided to a presentation system in which a visual alert, aural alert, and/or tactile alert is presented.