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US 9,311,821 B2Granted
Techniques for reporting on or tracking ground vehicles
AssigneeADS-B Technologies, LLC
InventorsMichael Steven Melum, Robert C. Nelson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Ground vehicle reporting and tracking techniques are provided to track vehicles associated with a particular area (e.g., an airport, a military base, etc.). Ground vehicles may regularly report information about the vehicle to one or more control stations via corresponding communication links. The communication links may include, for example, an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) link and a non-ADS-B link.
Claims33
An apparatus comprising:
- a position estimator to track a current position of a vehicle;
- a vehicle Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) transmitter to wirelessly transmit vehicle information associated with the vehicle, wherein the vehicle ADS-B transmitter is to disable the transmission of the vehicle information based at least in part on the current position of the vehicle with respect to a surface region;
- and
- an ADS-B link augmentation system (ALAS) transmitter to transmit the vehicle information to a remote user control station via a non-ADS-B communications protocol responsive to an output signal from a geographic switch to monitor the vehicle position with respect to the surface region.
1 more element
A machine-implemented method comprising:
- tracking a current position of a vehicle;
- wirelessly transmitting vehicle information from the vehicle using a first transmitter, the vehicle information including characteristics of the vehicle;
- and
- wirelessly broadcasting vehicle information from the vehicle using a second transmitter if the current position of the vehicle satisfies a first condition with respect to a surface region, wherein the second transmitter to include an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) transmitter, and wherein
- the wireless transmitting using the first transmitter comprises converting from an ADS-B protocol to a non-ADS-B protocol responsive to an output signal from a geographic switch to monitor the current position of the vehicle with respect to the surface region.
2 more elements
An apparatus comprising:
- an ADS-B link augmentation system (ALAS) receiver to receive vehicle information from ALAS transmitters within remote ground vehicles that are not ADS-B transmitters, the ALAS to comprise a protocol converter to convert a signal to a non-ADS-B protocol responsive to an output signal from a geographic switch within one or more of the remote ground vehicles, the geographic switch to monitor the position of the one or more ground vehicles with respect to a surface region;
- and
- a server to collect and assemble the received vehicle information into a useable format for display at one or more display points.
An apparatus comprising:
- a machine readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions executable by a computing system to:
- track a current position of a vehicle;
- convert from an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) to a non-ADS-B protocol responsive to an output signal from a geographic switch to monitor the vehicle position with respect to the surface region;
- initiate a wireless transmission of vehicle information from the vehicle via the non-ADS-B protocol, the vehicle information to include with characteristics of the vehicle;
- and
- initiate a wireless broadcast of vehicle information from the vehicle via an ADS-B protocol in response to the current position of the vehicle a first condition with respect to a surface region.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.