US 5,689,273 A · Aircraft surface navigation system

Abstract

A surface guidance system for guiding aircraft equipped with Instrument Landing Systems along taxiways which utilizes two inductive loops (14,16) installed around the right half and the left half of the taxiways. Audio amplifiers (18,20) drive one loop (14) with an 90 Hz signal and the other loop (16) at 150 Hz. A sensor (22) mounted on the aircraft detects the composite magnetic field induced by the surface loops (14,16). The detected signal is conditioned and supplied to the ILS system to provide left/right lateral guidance to the pilot. Longitudinal aircraft position is determined by using dipole marker antennas (52) embedded near the taxiway center line. Each marker antenna (52) has a unique code identifier. Existing ILS equipped aircraft can sense the marker signal and transmit the aircraft position to the ATC facility. Additional pairs of loops (14,16) and marker antennas (52) are used for different taxiway or runway sections.

Claims12

Dependent claims

A ground guidance system for guiding an aircraft equipped with an Instrument Landing System (ILS) along a defined path comprising:

a pair of inductive loops, the first loop disposed around the right side half of the path and the second loop disposed around the left side half of the path;
a first audio amplifier for driving the first loop at a first audio frequency;
a second audio amplifier for driving the second loop at a second audio frequency;
an inductive sensor mounted on the aircraft for receiving the composite magnetic field induced by the pair of inductive loops;
signal processing means connected to said inductive sensor for converting the signal received by said inductive loop to an RF signal compatible with the aircraft ILS;
and,
indicator means in the ILS display responsive to the radio frequency signal from said signal processing means for providing an indication of deviation of the aircraft from the center line of the path for providing both lateral position guidance to the pilot of a taxiing aircraft.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Aircraft surface navigation system

Life of this patent

Aircraft surface navigation system

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims12