Electronic Flight Bag Packing With Route Buffer Content Selection

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Solution Overview

Problem

Electronic flight bags (EFBs) face significant storage capacity challenges in downloading all necessary aeronautical content due to the extensive data requirements, which can exceed the capacity of the mobile device hosting them.

Innovation Solution

A method and system for packing EFBs by determining a buffer zone surrounding a flight route, selectively downloading aeronautical content within this zone from a remote repository, and displaying the route and buffer zone on an aeronautical chart, thereby optimizing storage usage and ensuring relevant data is accessible.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If all available aeronautical content is downloaded to the EFB device, then pilots have complete access to all aeronautical data, but the storage capacity requirements exceed the capacity of the mobile device

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveaccess to aeronautical dataVSAvoidstorage capacity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the complete aeronautical content into route-specific portions by determining a buffer zone surrounding the flight route and downloading only the aeronautical content within that zone. This divides the large dataset into smaller, flight-relevant segments that fit within device storage constraints

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent applies local quality by customizing the downloaded content to match the specific flight route requirements. The buffer zone calculation ensures that content is downloaded with precision tailored to the local geographic area of the flight, rather than uniformly downloading all content

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

2Quantity of substance

If a buffer zone surrounding the route is determined and only relevant content is downloaded, then storage capacity requirements are reduced, but the complexity of identifying and selecting appropriate aeronautical content increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvestorage capacityVSAvoidcontent selection process

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies preliminary action by automatically determining the buffer zone and pre-identifying the relevant aeronautical content before the flight. The system performs the complex selection process in advance, calculating the buffer zone boundaries and filtering content based on geographic overlap, so that pilots receive ready-to-use packaged content without needing to understand the selection process

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS11156475B2Method and system for packing an electronic flight bag

Publication Date: 2021.10.26 JEPPESEN FOREFLIGHT INC

AI summary

A method for packing an electronic flight bag (EFB) involves obtaining a route, determining a buffer zone surrounding the route, identifying aeronautical content to be downloaded that is at least partially located in the buffer zone, and downloading the identified aeronautical content from a remote aeronautical content repository to the EFB device. The method further involves selecting, from the downloaded aeronautical content, at least one aeronautical chart, and displaying the route and the buffer zone in the at least one aeronautical chart.