Aircraft Taxi Guidance With Selective Anti-Incursion Braking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing automated aircraft taxi systems during the taxi phase at airports require significant pilot workload due to spurious alerts and uncomfortable automated actions, such as unnecessary auto-braking, and lack seamless integration with guidance systems.
Innovation Solution
An automated aircraft taxi system that includes a mapping module for airport maps, a path trajectory module, a guidance module, and a protection module to manage incursion and collision risks, selectively adapting guidance instructions based on the taxi path trajectory to avoid unnecessary alerts and actions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If automated anti-incursion function triggers alerts and auto-braking at all entry points to incursion-risk areas, then safety protection is improved, but spurious alerts and unnecessary auto-braking occur increasing pilot workload
Solution Approach 1:
The protection module applies different monitoring behaviors to different entry points based on the taxi path trajectory. Entry points that lie on the planned trajectory receive full protection monitoring, while entry points not on the trajectory have monitoring disabled or reduced. This localized differentiation eliminates spurious alerts at irrelevant entry points while maintaining safety at critical ones.
Solution Approach 2:
The system preliminarily determines the taxi path trajectory and identifies which entry points to incursion-risk areas will be traversed before executing the taxi operation. This preliminary analysis allows the protection module to pre-configure monitoring only for relevant entry points, preventing unnecessary alerts before they occur.
2Reliability
If automated braking is triggered at all detected incursion risks, then collision avoidance is improved, but unnecessary braking occurs reducing taxi efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
Automatic braking protection is applied selectively only at entry points that lie on the planned taxi path trajectory. Entry points not on the trajectory have automatic braking disabled or reduced. This localized application maintains collision avoidance safety at critical locations while eliminating unnecessary braking events that would reduce taxi efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The system preliminarily identifies which entry points will be encountered based on the taxi path trajectory before executing braking actions. This preliminary identification ensures that automatic braking is only triggered at relevant entry points, preventing efficiency-reducing unnecessary braking while maintaining safety where needed.
Data Source
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AI summary
An automated aircraft taxi system comprises: a mapping module obtaining (401) an airport map representing an airport environment; a path trajectory module receiving (402) a digital taxi clearance identifying a destination within the airport environment and generating (403) accordingly a taxi path trajectory; a guidance module computing (404) guidance instructions based on the taxi path trajectory; and a protection module identifying (421) incursion risks on the taxi path trajectory and adapting the guidance instructions accordingly, such that an anti-incursion function triggers automatic braking of the aircraft and/or alert the pilot when approaching an incursion-risk area. The anti-incursion function selectively disregards (422) an entry point to such an incursion-risk area when approaching said entry point, according to whether or not the aircraft is subject to enter said incursion-risk area through said entry point according to the taxi path trajectory. Thus, automated aircraft taxi operations are improved.