Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Navigation – Employing way point navigation
Reexamination Certificate
2003-03-17
2004-11-09
Black, Thomas G. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Navigation
Employing way point navigation
C701S009000, C701S014000, C244S00100R, C340S963000, C340S945000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06816780
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a method and system or using flight plan information to produce a model and then evaluating the modeled airplane flight path in view of terrain information to produce an alert for portions of the flight path model in which potentially inadequate ground clearance may occur.
Current flight management systems accept flight plan information and use this information in the piloting of aircraft. Many such systems are capable of outputting this information in digital form for use by other flight instruments. Various interface and data format standards for the transmission of such digital information have been developed and implemented. One such form of digital communication is the unidirectional communication via a wire pair data bus according to the ARINC 429 interface standard. The flight management system may have two or more such interfaces with one dedicated to data output and another to data input. Another such standard is ARINC 629, which allows higher speed, bidirectional data transmission across a bus. Data can be transmitted through such an interface in serial form in accordance with the ARINC 702 or proposed 702(a) or other standard. Under the ARINC 702 standard, for example, data is transmitted in 32 bit units. The first eight bits of the unit are the label, identifying the type of data. Flight plan information sent over the data bus may be read by any equipment interfaced to the bus, and the information contained in the latter 24 bits of the unit may be identified as to type by the eight bit label. The construction and operation of such interfaces and the transmission of such data according to protocols such as ARINC 702 are known in the art. It is also within the ability of those skilled in the art to buffer such data, translate data between different data protocols and so forth.
Current flight management systems presently include a screen, and properly labeled data transmitted to such flight management systems can frequently be displayed on such screens. In addition, the flight instrumentation may include other screens that can be sent data over a data bus, or which can be switched to receive text data, images or image overlays. Interfacing an instrument to such other screens is within the ability of those skilled in the art of the design of aircraft instrumentation. One such screen on which a flight instrument may display information may be a weather radar screen. It is known to provide switching capability to disable the sending of video signals or data from a weather radar to the weather radar screen and allow the display of video signals from such other instrument on the weather radar screen in lieu thereof. Likewise, some aircraft include multipurpose displays on which text and/or images from an instrument may be displayed, and the interfacing of instruments to such displays and their associated electronics is known in the art.
Finally, the provision of text, image, indicator light, tone, synthesized or digitized voice annunciation in response to determination of conditions requiring an alert, caution or warning are known in the art.
The flight plan information for a flight between two airports may be entered into the flight management system or other avionics in many forms, but commonly is represented by a series of flight waypoints with the initial waypoint being the departure airport and the final waypoint being the destination airport. The direct path to a waypoint is a leg, and taken together, the legs define the intended flight plan of the aircraft. Some current and planned flight management systems are capable of receiving the input of and storing about 99 waypoints. The waypoints represent a series of locations along the flight plan, and other information such as altitude constraint and waypoint identifier may be associated with specific waypoints. The flight plan information may also include required navigation performance or flight phase information.
The altitude constraint information may be an actual altitude or a qualified altitude. Qualifiers to altitude data would be at or above, above, at or below and below. For example, an at or above 8,000 feet altitude constraint would indicate the intent that the aircraft be at an altitude at the waypoint which was no less than 8,000 feet.
The waypoint identifier is a letter designation of up to five letters associated with a specific location. For example, the identifier for an approach waypoint into Seattle ANVIL. The waypoint identifier may represent the location of an airfield, radio navigation aid or other selected location. Many such waypoints are identified by such identifiers on air navigation charts. While the flight crew could enter the flight plan information by keying in the latitude, longitude and other information on the keypad of the flight management system or other device, it is frequently more convenient and less likely to cause error to allow entry of the waypoint by keying in the identifier.
Required navigation performance data, which could be provided by a flight management system as part of the flight plan information, would indicate the maximum allowable deviation from the flight path. This data may be represented by the minimum allowable deviation from a point along the flight plan which is allowed. Deviation from the flight path may occur due to a variety of factors including the lack of exact aircraft position information. Such deviation may result, for example, from drift in an inertial navigation system, limitations in the precision of a global positioning system, or from other instrument accuracy or aircraft operation factors. The required navigational performance may vary depending on aircraft flight parameters. For example, the aircraft must be flown with enhanced positional precision and may be allowed to approach terrain more closely both laterally and vertically during a landing approach than may be appropriate during the en route phase of the flight.
In addition to or in lieu of required navigation performance data, a flight management system may also provide flight phase information in conjunction with the other flight plan information. Although many different categories of flight phase information could be provided, three categories for flight phase are the approach/departure phase, which may generally be defined as within six miles of the approach or departure airport, the terminal phase, which would be the area outside the approach departure phase area but within fifteen miles of the airport, and the en route phase, which would apply to the portions of the flight outside the approach/departure and terminal areas.
While errors in the entry of flight plan information are not common, they are known to occur. Confusion between waypoint identifiers, miskeying of information, such as pressing the “0” key too few times, resulting, for example, in the entering of an altitude constraint of 2000 feet rather than 20,000 feet, or misreading latitude and longitude figures from a chart may result in a flight path that could, and have, contributed to a subsequent controlled flight into terrain. Unfortunately, it is not practical for flight crew members to attempt to check the flight path manually. This might require the plotting of the intended flight path on a map with contour information and then examining the contour information along the entire flight path. Moreover, deviations from the intended flight plan often occur during the flight. Such changes would require further plotting and checking of maps and contour information while en route.
Present and proposed ground proximity warning systems and terrain avoidance warning systems use a variety of flight configuration, position, altitude, velocity and other information to detect and warn of dangerous flight situations. Some such systems may include terrain data, including terrain models, and may use such models, for example, in the terminal area, to define altitudes below which an aircraft in a given configuration should not descend. Such systems, however, do not provide pre-chec
Glaze Patrick K.
Krohn Patrick G.
Naimer Hubert L.
Black Thomas G.
Hernandez Olga
Narcisse Claude R.
Universal Avionics Systems Corporation
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