Aircraft Waypoint List Display Scroll Bar Symbology
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional aircraft visual display systems have a limited viewable area, making it time-consuming and inefficient to navigate through long flight plans with hundreds of waypoints.
Innovation Solution
An aircraft visual display system with a scroll bar featuring symbology representing flight plan characteristics, such as flight phase, waypoint type, and time of arrival, allowing users to efficiently navigate and access specific portions of the flight plan.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If a conventional display with limited viewable area is used to display flight plans, then the display device structure is simple, but the time required to navigate through hundreds of waypoints is excessive
Solution Approach 1:
The patent adds a vertical dimension to the display by implementing a scroll bar that extends beyond the main display area. This allows navigation through flight plan waypoints both horizontally (within the display area) and vertically (via the scroll bar), effectively adding a second dimension to the navigation space and enabling access to hundreds of waypoints without increasing the physical display area.
Solution Approach 2:
The flight plan display is segmented into multiple sections: the main display area showing current waypoints and the scroll bar showing the overall flight plan structure. The scroll bar itself is segmented to represent different portions of the flight plan, allowing pilots to quickly jump to specific segments (e.g., departure, enroute, approach) rather than scrolling through each waypoint sequentially.
2Productivity
If sequential navigation through waypoints is used, then the display structure is simple, but the operational efficiency is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The scroll bar provides a preliminary overview of the entire flight plan structure before the pilot begins navigation. By displaying the complete flight plan outline in the scroll bar, pilots can plan their navigation path in advance, identify key waypoints or segments ahead of time, and prepare for upcoming maneuvers, thereby improving operational efficiency and reducing in-flight decision-making complexity.
Data Source
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AI summary
An aircraft system includes a flight management system configured to generate a flight plan with a plurality of waypoints. The aircraft system includes a processing unit configured to receive the flight plan and to generate display commands representing the flight plan as a list of the waypoints. The aircraft system further includes a display device configured to receive the display commands and render a first area with a portion of the list of waypoints and a scroll bar adjacent the first area. The scroll bar includes a scrolling region and a scroll indicator positioned within the scrolling region based on user input to modify the portion of the list displayed in the first area. The display device is further configured to render first symbology within the scrolling region that represents a first characteristic associated with at least one of the waypoints in the flight plan.