Telemetry burst collision avoidance system

• US 4,835,537 A
• Filed: 08/08/1988
• Issued: 05/30/1989
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/1986
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: WNS Holdings LLC
• Original Assignee: James H. Manion
• Inventors: Manion, James H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tarcza, Thomas H.
• Assistant Examiner(s): SWANN, TOD R
• Application Number:
  US07/231,586
• Time in Patent Office: 295 Days
• Field of Search: 340/961, 342/29-33, 342/37, 342/38, 342/40, 342/42, 342/455, 342/456, 364/461, 364/423, 364/443, 364/460
• US Class Current: 342/30
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0009 Transmission of position information to remote stations involving assistance data G01S5/0236

Abstract

An aircraft collision avoidance system providing warning and avoidance manuevers for all fixed and moving obstructions that threaten the safe navigation of the host aircraft. The system is effective against threatening aircraft, runway maintenance vehicles and prominent geographic obstructions such as radio towers and mountain peaks. It is an economical combination of basic telemetry equipment (transmitter/receiver) and current personal computer components configured to broadcast its host location and intended movement while simultaneously receiving the same information from all nearby similarly equipped stations, either air or ground. Maximum effectiveness is attained when data is available from the Global Positioning System but alternative sources of navigational information including dead reckoning are provided for. Althrough intended primarily for aviation use, the same technology and concepts are valid for the safe transit of ships and railway equipment.

Claims

1. An improved vehicular collision avoidance system of the type in which each vehicle, utilizing radio communication equipment, repeatedly broadcasts a formatted report of its current position, as taken from on-board navigation equipment, in latitude-longitude or cartesian coordinate format together with its current altitude and concurrently receives such said reports from other vehicles and in which digital computing equipment is contained within each vehicle for the purpose of constructing a geographic display of the current vehicular traffic situation for human interpretation and also to generate visual and audible alarms whenever a minimum current range to another vehicle is detected, wherein the improvement comprises

(a) the installation of geographically fixed systems, hereafter collectively with vehicular systems referred to as stations, to mark runways and prominent fixed obstructions thereby establishing useful checkpoints to improve visual navigation as well as enabling a more meaningful geographic display;

(b) the expansion of said report to include checksum validation data thereby permitting a checksum validation of each report received, a type identification value thereby enabling the display of a unique type symbol for each of the various fixed and vehicular stations, velocity north, velocity east, and rate-of-climb thereby permitting the calculation of the future position of each reporting vehicle;

(c) the inclusion of dedicated computing equipment to control said communications equipment principally by monitoring carrier detection circuitry of the radio receiver to inhibit own transmissions when another station is transmitting and by rejecting reports that fail checksum validation tests thereby significantly reducing the false alarm rate;

(d) the expansion of said display/alarm computing equipment to include logic means for electrical linkage to said communications computing equipment and to on-board motion sensing instruments; and

also to include logic means to perform the navigation functions of maintaining a dead-reckoning position, calculating a compensating wind to correct for system errors, constructing said reports for use by said communications computing equipment, calculating the future positions of own and all currently held vehicles, comparing those future positions and providing evasive maneuver recommendations when a minimum future range to a vehicle or fixed obstruction occurs that is not coincident with non-hazard values of range rate, bearing rate and climb rate thereby significantly reducing the false alarm rate;

(e) the inclusion of reference data means at each station for the provision of permanently recorded, machine-readable navigational information related to the identification, geographic location, and operational characteristics of each aid to navigation and to include a set of trigonometric function values for use in collision computations;

(f) the provision of an operator input device to provide means for instantaneous geographic reposition of own station using only the sense of touch thereby enabling rapid pilot compliance with reposition instructions from air controllers as well as making possible precise position adjustments during ground maneuvers;

(g) the expansion of said geographic display to provide both current and future positions of own and other vehicles as well as name identification for at least some of the geographically fixed stations thereby making said display interpretable at a glance as well as more meaningful in a geographic sense.