Runway and airport incursion alerting system and method

• US 8,019,529 B1
• Filed: 08/17/2007
• Issued: 09/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/17/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Collins, Inc. (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Collins, Inc. (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Inventors: Sharma, Vivek, Rathinam, Sethu R., Koczo, Stefan Jr., Carrico, Matthew J., Wichgers, Joel M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zanelli; Michael J.
• Application Number:
  US11/893,728
• Time in Patent Office: 1,488 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 701/117
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/06 for control when on the ground

Abstract

An apparatus for detecting incursions for an aircraft and surface vehicles includes an incursion processor receiving ownship position from an ownship navigation processor, traffic information from a traffic surveillance processor, and obstacle information from an obstacle detector and generating alert information. The apparatus also includes a display processor receiving airport chart information and providing display information for displaying the alert information and airport chart information.

Claims

1. An apparatus for detecting incursions for an aircraft or other airport surface vehicles, the apparatus comprising:

an incursion processor aboard the aircraft receiving ownship information from an ownship navigation processor, traffic information from a traffic surveillance processor, obstacle information from an obstacle detector, and airport layout information from a database and generating alert information in response to alerting rules, wherein the alerting rules are from a set of alerting rules associated with particular airports or sets of airports; and

a display processor for displaying the alert information.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the alert information is provided to an alert advisory processor, the alert advisory processor provides a display formatted signal for the display processor, the display formatted signal including at least some of the alert information and aircraft chart information.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the traffic information is based upon at least one of TIS-B, ADS-B, ADS-R, and TCAS, or any combination thereof.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the obstacle information is radar information, optical information, millimeter wave information, acoustic information, LIDAR information, or FM continuous wave information.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the alerting rules are specific to a particular airport.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the alerting rules are specific to a specific region of the airport, or the current operational configuration of the airport.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein incursion processor receives ownship taxi route information from a traffic surveillance processor.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein incursion processor receives traffic taxi route information from a runway/taxiway generator.

9. A method of detecting an incursion on board an ownship vehicle, the method comprising:

electronically receiving an airport layout associated with an airport;

electronically receiving a state of the ownship vehicle;

electronically receiving a state of aircraft traffic in the vicinity of the airport;

electronically receiving a state of surface vehicles in the vicinity of the airport;

electronically receiving a state of obstacles in the vicinity of the airport;

electronically receiving operational and alerting rules for incursion detection; and

computing incursion alerts using an electronic processor based upon the alerting and operational rules, and the state of the ownship vehicle, the state of aircraft traffic, and the state of obstacles, the alerting and operational rules being selected from a set of alerting and operational rules specific to particular airports.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

predicting one or more future states of the ownship vehicle;

predicting one or more future state of traffic, and

predicting one or more future state of obstacles.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

providing the incursion alerts.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the incursion alerts are provided aurally, visually, or tactilely.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising terminating one or more of the incursion alerts based upon one or more of ownship state and the airport layout.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the incursion alerts are determined using one or more real-time sensors and traffic surveillance information.

15. The method of claim 9 wherein a conflict detection algorithm is utilized to compute the incursion alerts.

16. The method of claim 9 wherein a state of the ownship vehicle includes at least one of position, velocity, acceleration, time, altitude, heading, vehicle size, and phase of operation.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the state of the ownship vehicle includes the phase of operation and includes at least one of push back, taxi, pre-take off, takeoff, approach, landing, flare, and rollout.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the incursion alerts are determined during any one or more phase of operation.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein the incursion alerts are assessed during any one or more phase of operation.

20. The method of claim 9 wherein the airport layout is used to determine if the state of the ownship vehicle is out of conformance.

21. The method of claim 9 wherein the airport layout includes one or more of runways, taxiways, hold lines, gates, ramps, parking areas, surface vehicle routes, surface vehicle roads, deicing areas, hangars, buildings, maintenance areas, and parking areas.

22. The method of claim 9 wherein the airport layout is-used to determine if the state of the aircraft traffic is out of conformance.

23. The method of claim 9 wherein the airport layout is used to determine if the state of obstacles is out of conformance.

24. A system for providing alert information in an aircraft environment for an aircraft, the system comprising:

a real-time sensor interface for receiving obstacle information from at least one real-time sensor;

a traffic surveillance interface for receiving traffic information from at least one ground-based infrastructure type system;

a processor for use on board the aircraft for determining the alert information in response to ownship information, an airport chart, the traffic information, the obstacle information and alerting rules, the alerting rules being specific to a particular airport or set of airports.

25. The system of claim 24 wherein the processor applies alerting rules specific to the airport.

26. The system of claim 25 wherein the alerting rules are provided by at least one of database, datalink, manually entered by the pilot/vehicle operator or controller, or any combination thereof.

27. The system of claim 24 wherein the processor utilizes elliptical protection zones.

28. The system of claim 27 wherein the ownship information includes at least one of position, velocity, acceleration, time, and phase of operation.

29. The system of claim 28 wherein the phase of operation includes at least one of push-back, taxi, pre-takeoff, takeoff, approach, landing, flare, and rollout.

30. The system of claim 24 wherein the alerts are displayed upon a map representing the airport layout on a situational awareness display.