Contextual 3D Imagery for Urban Air Mobility Navigation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional two-dimensional navigation views for urban air mobility vehicles lack relevant height information and can be cluttered with irrelevant details, while three-dimensional views are resource-intensive and overwhelming for operators navigating in low-altitude urban airspace.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that provide contextual three-dimensional imagery to aircraft operators by obtaining flight information, retrieving building data, assigning visual characteristics to buildings based on flight and building information, and rendering these in three dimensions for display, prioritizing relevant information like landing pads and reducing clutter.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If three-dimensional navigation views are used to provide height information and spatial context, then operator awareness of relevant airspace features is improved, but the system becomes resource-intensive and may obscure relevant information behind less relevant details
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different visual characteristics (opacity, color, size) to different buildings based on their relevance to the aircraft's flight path and landing objectives. Buildings with landing pads that are relevant to the flight plan are displayed with higher opacity and prominence, while irrelevant buildings are displayed with lower opacity or excluded entirely. This selective differentiation maintains comprehensive spatial information while reducing visual clutter and computational burden.
2Loss of information
If all building details are displayed in three-dimensional views, then complete spatial information is provided, but information overload occurs and relevant details are obscured
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and highlights only the most relevant building features and spatial information based on the aircraft's flight plan, current position, and trajectory. Buildings with landing pads that match the flight plan are extracted and displayed with enhanced visual characteristics, while non-relevant buildings and details are either excluded or displayed with reduced prominence. This selective extraction prevents information overload while maintaining essential spatial context for safe navigation and landing.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are methods, systems, and non-transitory computer-readable media for generating visual cues for spatial communication coverage. For instance, the method may include obtaining a proposed travel path for a vehicle; locating one or more communication channels accessible to an operator of the vehicle in an area that includes at least a portion of the proposed travel path; and analyzing one or more characteristics of the one or more communication channels to determine one or more positions within the area at which the one or more communication channels will be inaccessible to the operator. The method may further include calculating a present position and a velocity of the vehicle; determining communication channel availability; and presenting the communication channel availability to the operator via a graphical user interface.