Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Navigation – Determination of travel data based on the start point and...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-07
2001-09-11
Nguyen, Tan (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Navigation
Determination of travel data based on the start point and...
C340S945000, C342S109000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06289277
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to vehicle navigation, and more particularly concerns the planning of aircraft routes, including display and user interaction.
BACKGROUND
The aviation community has a goal of reducing the fatal-accident rate by eighty percent within the next ten years. At the same time, air traffic continues to increase, and the national airspace system is undergoing major changes. In particular, it is likely that aircraft pilots will be given more responsibility for avoiding hazards themselves.
Weather is a factor in a third of aircraft accidents. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is presently embarked upon a multi-year effort to provide better weather information and to improve hazard characterization, condition monitoring, data display, and decision support. At the present time, controllers, dispatchers, and air-traffic managers have access to a number of weather-information products from private vendors and from government services. Graphic displays of weather information on large airliners arc limited to onboard weather radars and information from paper weather briefings. En-route updates are delivered either as voice messages via radio or as alphanumeric data-link printouts onboard the aircraft.
Flight planning is a complex task. A strategic planning and replanning tool produces a flight plan that describes the track, speed, and altitude that an aircraft will fly during various phases of an entire flight. Because the underlying models and assumptions made in a completely automated system may be incomplete or fallible, some have suggested the broad concept of a cooperative planner that interacts with a human operator. Pilots and dispatchers alike have stated that merely providing additional hazard information would not adequately support effective decision-making for routing choices. A need therefore remains for more advanced facilities for generating and modifying route plans for aircraft, both for increased safety and for better ease of use.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention offers systems and methods for producing routes for aircraft and similar vehicles in response to a number of factors, including weather hazards and other in-flight conditions.
The invention offers systems and methods for interactive route planning in the face of weather and other hazards. It also furnishes data representations and models for factors that influence route planning, such as arrival time, fuel efficiency, passenger comfort, overflight fees, and conditions at terminals, including traffic congestion and closure of runways and other facilities. It further supplies an interface for facilitating the display of in-flight condition data and the manipulation of the route. It can optionally be used with a route optimizer for modifying computer-generated proposed routes.
The invention achieves these and other objectives by displaying hazards of different types in response to received data and defining boundaries and/or other specifications characterizing the hazards for purposes of the flight plan. Controls permit a user to modify the displayed data and to manipulate the route.
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Feyereisen Thea Lynn
Misiak Christopher J.
Riley Victor A.
Honeywell International , Inc.
Nguyen Tan
Shudy, Jr. John G.
Tran Dalena
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