Space weather monitoring system for polar routes

• US 9,541,673 B2
• Filed: 05/12/2015
• Issued: 01/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Korea Astronomy And Space Science Institute
• Original Assignee: Korea Astronomy And Space Science Institute
• Inventors: Baek, Ji-Hye, Lee, Jaejin, Choi, Seonghwan, Hwang, Eunmi, Park, Young-Deuk
• Primary Examiner(s): Shafi, Muhammad
• Application Number:
  US14/709,997
• Publication Number:
  US 20150325130A1
• Time in Patent Office: 609 Days
• Field of Search: 701/14
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01W 1/02 Instruments for indicating weather conditions by measuring two or more variables, e.g. humidity, pressure, temperature, cloud cover or wind speed G01W1/10 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01W 1/10 Devices for predicting weather conditions computers per se G06; display devices G09
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0004 Transmission of traffic-related information to or from an aircraft airborne radio transmission systems in general H04B7/185; airborne wireless networks H04W84/06
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0013 with a ground station
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0021 located in the aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0052 for cruising combined instruments indicating more than one navigational value G01C23/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0091 for monitoring atmospheric conditions radar or analogous systems specially adapted for meteorological use G01S13/95; meteorology G01W

Abstract

A space weather monitoring system for polar routes includes: a satellite which flies over polar routes; a route-information providing server which receives data collected by the satellite monitoring the polar routes and generates various pieces of information about space weather; a flight vehicle which makes a request for information about the polar routes of the flight to the route-information providing server, and flies over the polar routes based on the received information; and a network which relays data among the satellite, the route-information providing server and the flight vehicle, so that an aurora-distribution map needed for an aircraft flight, an electromagnetic wave absorption map based on the ionosphere, information about space weather, and the situation and forecast of the space weather can be provided to an airline, thereby having effects on allowing the airline to check the information about the space weather in real time and fully considering a user who is unfamiliar to the space weather.

Claims

1. A space weather monitoring system for polar routes, comprising:

a satellite 100 which has an orbit passing over the polar routes, and is configured to observe a distribution of aurora particles;

a route-information providing server 200 which

receives data of the aurora particles distribution from the satellite 100,

obtains information of a change in space weather, and

generates various pieces of information about the space weather that include information of the aurora particles distribution and information of electromagnetic-wave absorption;

a flight vehicle 300 which makes a request for space weather information of a polar region that the flight vehicle flies over to the route-information providing server 200, and flies over one of the polar routes based on the received information; and

a network 400 which relays data among the satellite 100, the route-information providing server 200 and the flight vehicle 300.

2. A space weather monitoring system for polar routes, comprising:

a satellite 100 which has an orbit passing over the polar routes;

a route-information providing server 200 which receives data collected by the satellite 100 monitoring space environment and generates various pieces of information about space weather;

a flight vehicle 300 which makes a request for space weather information over a polar region of the flight to the route-information providing server 200, and flies over the polar routes based on the received information; and

a network 400 which relays data among the satellite 100, the route-information providing server 200 and the flight vehicle 300,

wherein the route-information providing server 200 comprises;

an aurora-distribution map generator 210 which generates an aurora-distribution map based on a distribution of aurora particles observed by the satellite;

an ionosphere electromagnetic-wave absorption map generator 220 which generates an electromagnetic-wave absorption map based on change in space weather, comprising a solar flare or a proton event, to be displayed on the aurora-distribution map;

a space-weather information generator 230 which generates a variety of graphs and forecasts about a solar radiation event (S), a geomagnetic storm (G), and a radio blackout (R); and

a space-weather situation and forecast generator 240 which generates space-weather situations corresponding to past 24 hours, present and tomorrow with regard to each of the solar radiation event (S), the geomagnetic storm (G) and the radio blackout (R).

3. The system according to claim 2, further comprising a main controller 260 which controls a storage 270 to store the aurora-distribution map generated by the aurora-distribution map generator 210, the electromagnetic-wave absorption map generated by the ionosphere electromagnetic-wave absorption map generator 220, the graphs and forecasts generated by the space-weather information generator 230, and the space-weather situations corresponding to past 24 hours, present and tomorrow generated by the space-weather situation and forecast generator 240 with regard to each of the solar radiation event (S), the geomagnetic storm (G) and the radio blackout (R).

4. The system according to claim 3, further comprising a communicator 280 which transmits the data of the storage 270 to the flight vehicle 300 under control of the main controller 260.

5. The system according to claim 4, wherein the main controller 260 controls the communicator 280 to transmit various kinds of space weather information generated by the space-weather information generator 230 to the flight vehicle 300 so that the space weather can be displayed as initial icons on a display of the flight vehicle 300 and the display can display graphs corresponding to solar energetic proton flux, a Kp index, and an intensity of X-ray when a user clicks the corresponding icon.

6. The system according to claim 2, wherein the route-information providing server 200 further comprises a flight-vehicle image and information display 250 which displays the present location of the flight vehicle 300 as an image together with the aurora-distribution map and the electromagnetic-wave absorption map on the display of the flight vehicle 300, and at the same time displays the location information and flight direction of the flight vehicle 300.