US 5,659,475 AGranted

Electronic air traffic control system for use in airport towers

OwnerDaniel M. Browninventor

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Abstract

A computer-based system is disclosed for monitoring and controlling the takeoff and landing of aircraft from an airport that is large enough to require the services that are routinely associated with operations at a control tower. Individual air traffic controllers continue to have the responsibility for monitoring aircraft that are within the operations zone of their tower. But when responsibility for a given aircraft is to be transferred from one controller to another, an icon in each of two separate arrays on a computer screen is sequentially selected by the transferring controller. The first selected icon represents the aircraft; the second selected icon represents the new controller. Other icons give certain control functions (e.g., turning on or turning off certain runway lights) to an air traffic controller, as well as providing additional data to that controller, including information about an aircraft that is not continuously displayed on the controllers screen but is in memory, ready for immediate recall. The computer-based system replaces the manual handling of flight progress strips that are routinely handed from one controller to another--to effect transfer of responsibility.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system for monitoring the takeoff and landing of an aircraft from an airport that is large enough to require the services that are routinely associated with operations at a control tower, comprising the combination of:

a) at least one airport from which various ones of a plurality of aircraft can be expected to depart and land, and said at least one airport having a control tower in which air traffic controllers routinely perform their duties of monitoring and controlling the takeoff and landing of individual aircraft;
b) a centralized computer for effecting air traffic control of aircraft as they move from one airport to another, and said centralized computer containing pre-programmed data about a variety of aircraft as well as a plurality of airports from which various ones of the aircraft can be expected to depart and land, and the centralized computer also having current data about a particular aircraft's location, its scheduled departure time from its present airport location, and its anticipated arrival time at another airport, with at least some of the current data being supplied to the centralized computer in the form of a flight plan submitted by the pilot of the aircraft, and the centralized computer also having a data packet associated with each aircraft that is expected to take off from and land at an airport;
c) a plurality of electronically interconnected computer terminals in the control tower of an airport, each of which terminals has a computer screen that can be observed and accessed by an air traffic controller, and said computer screens having images in a first array associated with individual ones of aircraft that are being monitored, and said computer screens also having a set of distinct images in a second array, and at least some of the images in the second array being associated with the performance of tasks that are routinely associated with the duties of air traffic controllers;
and
d) means for permitting an air traffic controller to select a given aircraft in the first array of images and perform an air traffic control task that is related to the selected aircraft, and the performance of said air traffic control task being accomplished by the subsequent selection of an image in the second array of images.

2 more elements

In an airport tower where it is expected that the responsibility for controlling a particular aircraft will at some time be routinely transferred from a first controller to a second controller, and wherein each of the controllers has a computer screen on which images are displayed and moved, the method of transferring responsibility for the control of a particular aircraft, comprising the steps of:

a) on the computer screen of a first controller, displaying a plurality of images that ale segregated into first and second arrays, with the first array of images containing images that are uniquely associated with a data packet for each of a plurality of aircraft, and each of said data packets containing technical information about a particular aircraft and its flight plan, and the second array of images being indicative of a controller's potential responsibility for selected ones of the aircraft that are represented in the first array of images;
b. choosing a given aircraft for which the responsibility for control is to be transferred to a second controller by choosing the image of that particular aircraft in the first array of images;
c. subsequently selecting in the second array that particular image that is associated with a second controller who is to assume responsibility for the aircraft from the first controller;
and
d. with a computer, electronically transferring the data packet and the image associated therewith from the computer screen of the first controller to the computer screen of the second controller as a result of selecting an image in the second array.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.