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Airport surface safety logic

  • US 5,519,618 A
  • Filed: 04/03/1995
  • Issued: 05/21/1996
  • Est. Priority Date: 08/02/1993
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. An airport surface safety logic system, comprising:

  • (A) a target state machine having predetermined states independent of an airport target object, the predetermined states corresponding to stopped, taxi-ing, arriving, landing, abort landing, departing, and abort departing, respectively, the target state machine for;

    receiving a plurality of tracks wherein each of the tracks includes information about the airport target object including;

    a position of the airport target object,a velocity of the airport target object,an acceleration of the airport target object, anda measure of the size of the airport target object; and

    determining, for each track, the state of the airport target object at an airport based upon whether the information about the airport target object corresponds to transitions between the predetermined states, thereby determining based on the predetermined states whether the airport target object is;

    stopped,taxi-ing,arriving to the airport,landing at the airport,aborting a landing at the airport,departing from the airport, oraborting a departure from the airport;

    (B) a prediction engine, coupled to the target state machine, having a predetermined acceleration model corresponding to each of the predetermined states, a predetermined deceleration model corresponding to each of the predetermined states, and a predetermined approach model, each of these models being created independently of the airport target object, the prediction engine utilizing, for each track received by the target state machine, at least the position, velocity, acceleration, and measure of the size of the airport target object to;

    predict, using the predetermined acceleration model that corresponds to the state of the airport target object, a maximum-distance path that the airport target object could travel in a predetermined period of time,predict, using the predetermined deceleration model that corresponds to the state of the airport target object, a minimum-distance path that the airport target object could travel in the predetermined period of time, andif the state of the airport target object is that of arriving to the airport, determine, using the predetermined approach model, whether the airport target object can land on a particular runway of the airport;

    (C) light-control logic, coupled to the target state machine and the prediction engine, for controlling runway-status lights on a surface of the airport based on the predictions and determinations made by the target state machine and the prediction logic; and

    (D) alert logic, coupled to the target state machine and the prediction engine, for;

    determining if two or more airport target objects are at risk of colliding based on the predictions and determinations made by the target state machine and the prediction logic, andgenerating visual and audible alerts in an airport control tower of the airport when it is determined that two or more airport target objects are at risk of colliding.

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