Event-Based Flight Management Strip for Temporal Awareness
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Solution Overview
Problem
Pilots face challenges in maintaining situational awareness of an aircraft's current and future states due to the proliferation of flight management system (FMS) information across different cockpit displays, leading to uncertainty about upcoming maneuvers and potential loss of temporal awareness regarding route and flight mode changes.
Innovation Solution
An event-based flight management system comprising an FMS, an event generator, and a presentation system that generates and displays flight management strips on a visual display unit, providing a sequence of future actions to the pilot, including commencement times and mode indicators, to enhance temporal and situational awareness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If multiple FMS information sources are integrated across different cockpit displays, then comprehensive navigation information is provided, but pilot situational awareness and temporal awareness of upcoming maneuvers deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the comprehensive FMS information into discrete, time-ordered event strips that are presented sequentially. Each strip represents a specific future maneuver or mode change with its anticipated time, breaking down the complex multi-display information into manageable, chronological units that improve pilot comprehension and situational awareness.
2Loss of information
If detailed FMS information is displayed across multiple sources, then complete flight data is available, but pilot workload in integrating information increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges information from multiple FMS sources (PFD, route window, vertical situation display) into a single integrated event strip display. This consolidation presents all relevant future maneuvers and mode changes in one chronological sequence, reducing the pilot's workload in integrating information while maintaining complete flight data.
3Loss of time
If FMS events are anticipated before actual occurrence, then pilot preparedness improves, but temporal awareness precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by displaying anticipated FMS events with their projected times before they actually occur. The event strips show future maneuvers and mode changes in chronological order, allowing pilots to prepare mentally and operationally in advance while providing sufficient time context through the time-to-event displays.
Data Source
AI summary
Present novel and non-trivial system, device, and method for generating and presenting one or more flight management strips on a visual display unit are disclosed. An event generator (“EG”) is configured to receive flight management data representative of one or more future vertical mode actions or future lateral mode actions, generate event data representative of one or more flight management strips, and provide the event data to a presentation system for the subsequent display of flight management strip(s). Each future vertical mode action may be comprised of a vertical FMS event or a speed/thrust FMS event, and each future lateral mode action may be comprised of a lateral FMS event. Also, each flight management strip could be informative of one FMS event and comprised of at least one commencement time row and one FMS event row for displaying time and event information, respectively.