Inflight graphical display of meteorological phenomena and method therefor
AssigneeHoneywell International Inc.
InventorRichard L. King
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An improved avionics display unit graphically presents meteorological phenomena data to a pilot enroute utilizing conventional pilot report (PIREP) information which includes meteorological phenomena data including phenomena location data. The avionics display unit generates an icon defined by the meteorological phenomena data of the PIREP information and presents the icon on a display of the avionics display unit overlaying a map display at an icon location determined in response to the phenomena location data of the PIREP information.
Claims28
A method for presenting meteorological phenomena data on an avionics display unit of an aircraft comprising:
- a memory, a map background generator and a display coupled to the memory and the map background generator wherein the avionics display unit has received pilot report (PIREP) information and stored the PIREP information in the memory, the PIREP information including flight location data, flight level data, meteorological phenomena data and report time data representing a report time of the PIREP information, wherein the meteorological phenomena data comprises phenomena location data, phenomena altitude data and phenomena type data, the method comprising the steps of:
- generating an icon defined by the meteorological phenomena data of the PIREP information in response to a graphical pilot report request signal;
- and
- presenting the icon at an icon location on the display over a map display generated by the map background generator, the icon location determined in response to the phenomena location data of the PIREP information.
An avionics display unit in an aircraft having aircraft receiver circuitry for receiving and decoding pilot report (PIREP) information, the PIREP information including flight location data, flight level data, weather phenomena data and report time data representing a report time of the PIREP information, the weather phenomena data comprising phenomena location data, phenomena altitude data, phenomena type data and phenomena intensity data, the avionics display unit comprising:
- a memory coupled to the aircraft receiver circuitry for receiving and storing the PIREP information;
- an avionics display unit user interface for generating a graphical pilot report request signal in response to a user input;
- a PIREP icon generator coupled to the avionics display unit user interface and the memory for generating an icon in response to the graphical pilot report request signal and the report time data, the icon defined by the phenomena altitude data, the phenomena type data and the phenomena intensity data;
- a display;
- a map background generator coupled to the display for generating map background information defining a map display;
- and
- a PIREP display generator coupled to the display, the map background generator and the PIREP icon generator for presenting the map display on the display and for presenting the icon on the display at an icon location on the map display, the icon location determined in response to the phenomena location data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.