Stick figure radar tracking process
First Claim
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1. An improved method for radar tracking of ground traffic at an airport to reduce the occurrence of runway incursions, comprising the steps of:
- employing a radar system to continuously sweep an airport area and detect individual major components of individual fixed and moving objects within the sweep area on and adjacent to a specific runway;
combining and centroiding the images from several individual aircraft components detected to provide an estimate of the true center and orientation of the aircraft and to form a stick-figure tracker for the aircraft being observed;
identifying the aircraft observed by comparing the stick figure tracker obtained with known stick figure trackers for the type aircraft suspected in the area;
measuring the range and bearing of the individual aircraft components; and
tracking each individual component in the stick figure tracker to thereby indicate and predict the precise relative location of critical aircraft physical components and give instantaneous information of any change in aircraft bearing between radar sweeps.
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Abstract
A process for reducing the likelihood of runway incursions wherein the major components of an aircraft are individually tracked by radar instead of tracking only the overall image of the aircraft to more accurately predict possible runway incursions due to the rapid and accurate indication of any change in aircraft orientation during each sweep of the radar.
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Citations
7 Claims
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1. An improved method for radar tracking of ground traffic at an airport to reduce the occurrence of runway incursions, comprising the steps of:
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employing a radar system to continuously sweep an airport area and detect individual major components of individual fixed and moving objects within the sweep area on and adjacent to a specific runway; combining and centroiding the images from several individual aircraft components detected to provide an estimate of the true center and orientation of the aircraft and to form a stick-figure tracker for the aircraft being observed; identifying the aircraft observed by comparing the stick figure tracker obtained with known stick figure trackers for the type aircraft suspected in the area; measuring the range and bearing of the individual aircraft components; and tracking each individual component in the stick figure tracker to thereby indicate and predict the precise relative location of critical aircraft physical components and give instantaneous information of any change in aircraft bearing between radar sweeps. - View Dependent Claims (2)
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3. An improved method of radar tracking of ground traffic at or near an airport runway to reduce the likelihood of runway incursions, comprising the steps of:
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providing a radar system for observing a specific area of an airport; sweeping the specific airport area observed periodically by the radar system; employing a data extraction process in the radar system to detect the major individual components of any aircraft within the observed specific area; and computer combining the separate major individual component images to provide an estimate of the true center and orientation of the aircraft observed and to predict the precise locations of the critical physical components of the aircraft. - View Dependent Claims (4, 5, 6, 7)
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Specification