Real-time surface traffic adviser

• US 6,278,965 B1
• Filed: 08/10/1998
• Issued: 08/21/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 06/04/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Administrator of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• Original Assignee: United States Of America As Represented By The Administrator Of The National Aeronautics And Space Administration
• Inventors: Gibson, James, Iverson, David L., Spirkovska, Liljana, Reisman, Ronald J., McDermott, William J., Glass, Brian J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Teska, Kevin J.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Knox, Lonnie A.
• Application Number:
  US09/131,560
• Time in Patent Office: 1,107 Days
• Field of Search: 701/1, 701/15, 701/16, 701/117, 701/120, 701/204, 701/300, 701/301, 703/2, 703/8, 703/22
• US Class Current: 703/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/025 Coordination of plural reservations, e.g. plural trip segments, transportation combined with accommodation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0082 for monitoring traffic from a ground station radar or analogous systems specially adapted for traffic control G01S13/91
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/065 Navigation or guidance aids, e.g. for taxiing or rolling

Abstract

A real-time data management system which uses data generated at different rates, by multiple heterogeneous incompatible data sources. In one embodiment, the invention is as an airport surface traffic data management system (traffic adviser) that electronically interconnects air traffic control, airline, and airport operations user communities to facilitate information sharing and improve taxi queuing. The system uses an expert system to fuse data from a variety of airline, airport operations, ramp control, and air traffic control sources, in order to establish, predict, and update reference data values for every aircraft surface operation.

Claims

1. A real-time surface traffic management, knowledge-based, expert advisor system for optimizing airport operational efficiency by acquiring, fusing, interpreting, mining and displaying real-time predictive and processed data for surface traffic management or training simulations comprising:

an intelligent server;

a plurality of input sources connected to said intelligent server via communication links; and

,

a plurality of destination sources connected to said intelligent server via said communication links, for allowing users to access said real-time predictive and processed data;

said intelligent server comprising;

a) an input management subsystem, comprised of autonomous computer programs, which collects heterogeneous, incompatible data from multiple sources, including user or instructor provided data, manages data sources, initiates actions in response to events, and communicates and negotiates through said expert advisor system, without direct human control,

b) an information subsystem which is a receiver of data from said input management subsystem and said user or instructor, a data fuser and integrator of said data, and an information router to the subsystems of said expert advisor system,

c) a prediction subsystem, which is an information receiver from said information subsystem, comprising data fusion rules for providing, accuracy assessments, future surface event predictions, and provision of said predictions back to said information subsystem,

d) a client interface subsystem which is a provider of displayed data to the destination sources, and

e) an autonomous executive subsystem which is a start-up and control system for said intelligent server, an error recovery and message system, and a system health monitor.

2. The expert advisor system of claim 1, wherein said input management subsystem further comprises one or more of a data sorter, a data identifier, a data corrector, and a data acquisition and search daemon.

3. The data acquisition and search daemon of claim 2, wherein said data acquisition and search daemon is an independent program that is attached to a value or structure in the airport database, and said data acquisition and search daemon is a real-time daemon “

invoked”

or triggered automatically when said value or structure is read or changed.

4. The expert advisor system of claim 1, wherein said input management subsystem is wholly or partially comprised of data agents.

5. The data agents of claim 4, wherein said data agents are autonomous computer programs which manage data sources, initiate actions in response to events, and communicate and negotiate with other data agents within said expert advisor system without direct human control.

6. The expert advisor system of claim 1, wherein said information subsystem is a data mining system, comprised of independent programs which run periodically to search all of said information subsystem for trends or discernable patterns to be routed for diagnostics, predictions and operations analysis to the appropriate said expert advisor system subsystems.

7. The data mining system of claim 6, wherein said data mining consists of the application of commonly known knowledge-based reasoning and statistical computational techniques to find the “

effective”

or “

valuable”

information in the traffic data by;

(a) constructing a model (or a set of models) for explaining the variation of the input data,

(b) preprocessing (or transforming) the original data in order to make consistency between input data and the model, and,

(c) identification of the model based on observed (input) data.

8. The input management subsystem of claim 1, wherein historical data generated by said information subsystem or said prediction subsystem is routed back to said input management subsystem.