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EP0883873B1 Expired / Lapsed EP ⏱️ 0.0 years remaining

Airport guidance system, in particular airport surface movement guidance and control system

Assignee: Siemens AG
•
Filing: 1997-02-28
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Granted: 1999-12-22
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Expires: 2017-02-28
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Abstract

Abstract An airport surface movement guidance and control system (SMGCS) involving detection, integrated processing and graphical display of the relevant, in particular the safety-relevant, positions and movements of aircraft, and optionally, vehicles, on airside (runway, taxiways, apron) and in the relevant airport airspace. At least one radar detects the positions and movements between airborne and parked positions of the aircraft. The relevant data are displayed after data concentration on the monitor of at least one controller station in graphical form and/or letter or number form. As a result, the operational management of the surface movement can be planned and executed from the at least one controller station by means of solely the SMGC system.

Inventors

  • 👤 Robert Castor
  • 👤 Lothar Belger
  • 👤 André JELU
  • 👤 Per Ingar Skaar
  • 👤 Einar Henriksen
  • 👤 Fredrik Berg-Nielsen

Bibliographic Details

Application Number —
Jurisdiction EP
Data Source google_patents
Last Synchronized 2026-10-30 10:10
CPC Classifications
G; G08; G08G; G08G5/00; G08G5/50; G08G5/51; G01; G01S; G01S13/00; G01S13/88; G01S13/91; G08G5/20; G08G5/22; G08G5/70; G08G5/72; G08G5/727; G01S2013/916

Claims Analysis

Total Claims: 21
Claim 1
Independent Claim 164 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system (SMGCS) with radar detection, integrated processing and integrated graphical display in the form of a radar video on at least one monitor for the relevant, in particular the safety-relevant positions and movements of aircraft, and, possibly, vehicles, on all relevant airside areas (runway, taxiways, apron) and in the relevant airport airspace (CTR) for the operational management of airport traffic, the operational management being carried out by using at least one radar to detect the aircraft, to discriminate between air movement and stationary, parked aircraft, essentially using the detailed radar video monitor display, the relevant data being displayed after data concentration, on the monitor of at least one controller, including the ground traffic signal states in video form and character or numeric form, in such a way that the controller can input the ground traffic signals which manage the aircraft and vehicles, for example for stop bars, docking instruction notices etc., to signal transmitters in a safety-related manner.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim 51 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to Claim 1, characterized in that the detection and operational management include vehicle movements on airside, for example with the aid of transponder interrogations or squitters by transponders, via ID tags and wire-free communications means, which can also be used for transmitting instructions.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim 33 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to Claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the airborne movements in the approach and departure area are included in the detection and operational management.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim 51 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to Claim 1, 2 or 3, characterized in that said system has a primary and/or secondary radar, the primary radar being used for location on airside, and the secondary radar preferably being used for identification in the approach and departure area, using transponders.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim 45 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said system has a multilateration system (e.g. CAPTS) which uses multilateration of the signal arrival times to determine exact position with simultaneous identification using transponder squitters.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim 46 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to Claim 4 or 5, characterized in that, on detection by the primary radar, the identification of the detected aircraft is carried out with the aid of data sources, and is displayed while being retained in the system.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim 62 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said system has a taxiing movement planning component, by means of which, taking account of the respective landing direction, collision-free taxiing traffic and other surface movement is planned, taking account of the necessary safety separations, as a function of the weather category (CATI-III).
Claim 8
Dependent Claim 35 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to Claim 7, characterized in that the monitor is also designed to display windows with status displays, handover displays, particularly in line form and acknowledgement lines, etc.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim 51 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to Claim 7, characterized in that the taxiway lighting sections, the stop bars and all the other signalling devices which are necessary to control surface movement, and their switching state can be displayed, in particular linked to other safety-relevant information, in said system.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim 57 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that the data which are detected in the system can be split between one or more controller locations and can be processed on the basis of the respective responsibility, depending on the respective amount of traffic at the airport.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim 36 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to Claim 9 or 10, characterized in that the handover of responsibility takes place after a handover acknowledgement in window displays on the monitor or on auxiliary monitors.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim 75 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to Claim 8, 9, 10 or 11, characterized in that the handover of responsibility takes place from the approach area to the runway control area via the taxiway control area to the apron control area and, in the reverse sequence for departure, by regrouping electronic flight strips (stripless) and designating the respective responsibility in monitor windows, possibly in conjunction with the radar video or a synthetic display.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim 93 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that the radar data, in particular with plot-extraction, are processed, together with the status of the taxiway, landing and take-off runway lights as well as other sensor components (or else transponders), possibly with the aid of data fusion and sensor correlation, to produce a standard format, in particular being completely digitized, and are then output to the radar video or are composed to form a complete synthetic display and/or are output to other monitor displays.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim 71 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to one of Claims 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13, characterized in that the radar video, possibly windows with status displays, handover lines and acknowledgement lines etc., are displayed on a flat screen having a screen diagonal of more than 19 inches (flat panel) which is designed, in particular, as a touchscreen with switching elements for airport lighting, for voice communication etc.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim 58 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said system is supplied with data relating to aircraft movements in the airspace further away, possibly with approach and departure positions, positions on the taxiway and, possibly, in the parking area being determined by GPS, in particular differential GPS.
Claim 16
Dependent Claim 45 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said system has a maintenance computer with a monitor on which the necessary maintenance and repair tasks, possibly as well as light failures, can be displayed.
Claim 17
Dependent Claim 47 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that the lights of the airport lighting system are designed such that they can be addressed individually, and, for this purpose, are equipped with EPROMs, in particular EEPROMs/flash PROMs.
Claim 18
Dependent Claim 45 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said system has an airport data transmission system which operates using glass-fibre transmission technology, coaxial cables and/or twisted pair cables, in particular of a redundant design.
Claim 19
Dependent Claim 62 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said system has an automatic docking system which operates in particular with optical detection, for example via raster cameras or laser ranging and detection, for determining the aircraft position, possibly with the assistance of a transponder identification system for the optically detected aircraft.
Claim 20
Dependent Claim 41 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to Claim 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 or 19, characterized in that the position data supplied from the docking system are introduced into the data fusion and sensor correlation, and vice versa.
Claim 21
Dependent Claim 39 words
Airport surface movement guidance and control system according to Claim 18 or 19, characterized in that the selection, occupancy and status messages for parking positions are produced on the basis of flight plans, and are displayed on the monitors.

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