Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Aeronautical vehicle
Reexamination Certificate
1999-01-18
2001-05-29
Louis-Jacques, Jacques H. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Aeronautical vehicle
C701S014000, C701S120000, C701S211000, C345S504000, C345S504000, C345S215000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06240341
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is generally related to aircraft cockpit instrumentation including flight computers, navigation equipment and the like, and more particularly to a flight management system (FMS) displaying navigation data during flight including waypoints, airports and navaids.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Military, commercial and private aircraft are equipped with a variety of cockpit instrumentation including flight computers, Primary Flight Displays (PFD), radios and gauges. A particular cockpit instrument is known as a Flight Management System (FMS) which formats FMS navigation data and forwards the data to a display system for display during flight for a pilot. The FMS navigation data can include waypoints, distances and headings between waypoints, airports and navaids, and are displayed in real-time during flight to chart a course from an origination point to a destination point. Prior to flight, the latitude and longitude of the various waypoints, airports, and navaids are programmed into the FMS computer to chart the intended course, forming a portion of the flight plan.
Referring to
FIG. 1
, there is illustrated a conventional FMS display illustrating various waypoints
12
plotted along a course from an origination point A to a destination point B. Each waypoint
12
is symbolically represented by a triangle symbol, and has associated therewith a latitude and a longitude abbreviated as LAT and LNG, respectively. A line interconnects the various waypoint triangular symbols
12
, and may be further identified with a distance in nautical miles, as well as a heading in degrees between the associated waypoints. The autopilot may fly the aircraft point to point based on the latitude and longitude points of the waypoints, or the pilot may manually fly the aircraft the identified distance at the identified heading along the charted course.
Other flight computers are provided with other various information including Instrument Flight Rule (IFR) charts, and Visual Flight Rule (VFR) charts which identify various other navigation data including weather maps, approach charts, airports, cities and navaids. Each chart corresponds to a representative small portion of the earth. During flight, the pilot may ascertain the IFR and VFR charts individually to determine weather conditions and the airports proximate the aircraft during flight as well as various cities, geographic landmarks and terrain to aid in navigation. These IFR and VFR charts may further be provided with filters, such as filters to screen out the airports that have suitable landing facilities for the particular aircraft should there be an emergency. For instance, if the aircraft is a Fokker
100
, the VFR charts may have a filter visually rendering and identifying only airports having suitable landing facilities for this particular aircraft.
One problem with conventional aircraft systems is that these IFR and VFR charts are only alternately displayed upon selection, and are not simultaneously displayed with the FMS navigation data including waypoints. The IFR and VFR charts are typically comprised of bitmapped image data that is stored in memory, and typically form rectangular charts, each corner of the chart having a specific latitude and longitude.
One particular problem is that these rectangular bitmapped charts are rectangular, yet the earth is a sphere and thus has a curved surface. Hence, while the charts are stored in memory as rectangular charts, the charts cannot simply be tiled together to represent a portion of the earth and simultaneously displayed with FMS navigation data since the chart corners, chart data and FMS navigation data do not necessarily align and register with one another due to the curvature of the earth.
FIG. 2
illustrates this problem. If the rectangular bitmapped data charts
14
were simply tiled together and merged with the FMS navigation data, the various airport and navaid symbols will not align and register with the various waypoint symbols, especially when the waypoint and the airport or navaid, for instance, have an identical latitude and longitude. For instance, the airport symbol
16
representing Longview, Tex., labeled as LNG, does not align with the associated waypoint
12
even though they have a common latitude and longitude. Again, this is due to the fact that the earth has a curved surface and causes the FMS data to be skewed from the bitmapped data of the VFR chart. Likewise, other VFR and IFR data including approach charts, weather radar and so forth will tend to be skewed from the FMS data if the bitmapped charts were simply merged with the FMS data as shown in FIG.
2
.
There is desired an improved aircraft display including an improved Flight Management System (FMS) that can integrate the bitmapped data charts such that the bitmapped data is properly registered and simultaneously displayed with the FMS navigation data including waypoints.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention achieves technical advantages as an aircraft display device having bitmapped data simultaneously displayed and properly registered with FMS navigation data, whereby a common distance algorithm is applied to all data based on a map center position. A graphics rendering technique known as texture mapping is applied to the rectangular bitmapped data images to form polygons. The polygon bitmapped data is then overlaid in real-time with the FMS navigation data including waypoints and properly registered therewith to provide an integrated display simultaneously displaying FMS navigation data and the bitmapped data. All of the data, including the FMS navigation data and the bitmapped data, is referenced to a map center latitude/longitude position, such as the current position of the aircraft, a waypoint or a corner of a map. The distance algorithm is preferably based on Sedonos Equations to accurately determine the distance of the various data from the aircraft, thus achieving registration on the single display. The present invention allows for an arbitrary number of bitmapped data charts to be tiled, overlapped, rotated or scaled on the display.
The present invention comprises an aircraft display device including a texture memory storing at least one bitmapped image data chart comprising geographically referenced bitmapped image data. The aircraft display device further includes a display and a processor having an input for receiving a signal indicative of a predetermined position, such as the current position of the aircraft, a waypoint or a corner of a map. The processor processes the bitmapped image data as a function of the predetermined position and simultaneously displays both the processed bitmapped image data and the received navigation data on the display. The processor processes the bitmapped image data and navigation data according to an algorithm which computes a distance of the bitmapped image data and the navigation data from the predetermined position, this algorithm preferably being based on Sedonos Equations. The bitmapped image data charts comprise rectangular charts, wherein the processor renders the bitmapped image data charts to polygon images. The processing preferably is performed using texture mapping to render the rectangular charts to the polygon images. The texture memory preferably stores a plurality of the bitmapped image data charts, whereby these charts are tiled when displayed as the polygon images on the display. The polygon images may also be overlapped, rotated or scaled. The processor has an input for receiving the FMS navigation data including waypoints, airports and navaids.
The method of the present invention comprises processing and displaying aircraft image data in a flight management system comprising the step of first determining a predetermined position, such as the current position of the aircraft, a waypoint or a corner of a map. At least one bitmapped image data chart comprising geographically referenced bitmapped image data is then processed as a function of the predetermined position, and then the processed bitmappe
Honeywell International , Inc.
Louis-Jacques Jacques H.
LandOfFree
Flight management system (FMS) with integrated bit mapped... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Flight management system (FMS) with integrated bit mapped..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Flight management system (FMS) with integrated bit mapped... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2541605