Today pilots have to obtain required information from a number of different sources like airport/SID/STAR/approach or
enroute charts (respectively their electronic representations), printouts like the flight plan or a weather briefing, and
updates via voice communications. The flight crew is required to mentally combine all this information. This situation
will become even more difficult to cope with in the SESAR/NextGen world with dynamic changes of the trajectory
(flight plan), and more frequent updates of weather, NOTAMs and other information requiring a higher degree of
automation and better information presentation.
To address these issues, lower the pilot's workload, and increase his situational awareness, a concept is presented where
all required information is provided through one application. Depending on the phase of flight (taxi-in/taxi-out,
departure, enroute, arrival, approach) the application will select the currently required information and provide a
seamless representation for the crew. The challenge is to provide the right information at the right time to the crew (e.g.
significant weather moving into the direction of the flight plan).
The focus of this paper will be on the components of the new application related to ground operations. This includes an
enhanced, AMM-like view with integrated taxi-routing support, graphical and textual display of chart notes (e.g.
wingspan restrictions, taxiway closures etc.), and updates of such information by automatic inclusion of digital
NOTAMs.
Input, management, and display of taxi routes on airport moving map displays (AMM) have been covered in various
studies in the past. The demonstrated applications are typically based on Aerodrome Mapping Databases (AMDB). Taxi
routing functions require specific enhancements, typically in the form of a graph network with nodes and edges modeling
all connectivities within an airport, which are not supported by the current AMDB standards. Therefore, the data
schemas and data content have been defined specifically for the purpose and test scenarios of these studies.
A standardization of the data format for taxi routing information is a prerequisite for turning taxi routing functions into
production. The joint RTCA/EUROCAE special committee SC-217, responsible for updating and enhancing the AMDB
standards DO-272 [1] and DO-291 [2], is currently in the process of studying different alternatives and defining
reasonable formats.
Requirements for taxi routing data are primarily driven by depiction concepts for assigned and cleared taxi routes, but
also by database size and the economic feasibility. Studied concepts are similar to the ones described in the GDF
(geographic data files) specification [3], which is used in most car navigation systems today. They include
- A highly aggregated graph network of complex features
- A modestly aggregated graph network of simple features
- A non-explicit topology of plain AMDB taxi guidance line elements
This paper introduces the different concepts and their advantages and disadvantages.
Helicopter Emergency Medical Service missions (HEMS) impose a high workload on pilots due to short preparation
time, operations in low level flight, and landings in unknown areas. The research project PILAS, a cooperation between
Eurocopter, Diehl Avionics, DLR, EADS, Euro Telematik, ESG, Jeppesen, the Universities of Darmstadt and Munich,
and funded by the German government, approached this problem by researching a pilot assistance system which supports
the pilots during all phases of flight.
The databases required for the specified helicopter missions include different types of topological and cultural data for
graphical display on the SVS system, AMDB data for operations at airports and helipads, and navigation data for IFR
segments. The most critical databases for the PILAS system however are highly accurate terrain and obstacle data. While
RTCA DO-276 specifies high accuracies and integrities only for the areas around airports, HEMS helicopters typically
operate outside of these controlled areas and thus require highly reliable terrain and obstacle data for their designated
response areas. This data has been generated by a LIDAR scan of the specified test region. Obstacles have been extracted
into a vector format.
This paper includes a short overview of the complete PILAS system and then focus on the generation of the required
high quality databases.
A new, open specification for embedded interchange formats for Airport Mapping Databases has been established in the
ARINC 816 document. The new specification has been evaluated in a prototypical implementation of ground and
airborne components. A number of advantages and disadvantages compared to existing solutions have been identified
and are outlined in this paper. A focus will be on new data elements used for automatic label placement on airport maps.
Possible future extensions are described as well.
Synthetic vision systems (SVS) are studied for some time to improve pilot's situational awareness and lower their
workload. Early systems just displayed a virtual outside view of terrain, obstacles or airport elements as it could also be
perceived through the cockpit windows in absence of haze, fog or any other factors impairing visibility. Required digital
terrain, obstacle and airport databases have been developed and standardized by Jeppesen as part of the NASA Aviation
Safety Program.
Newer SVS displays also introduced different kinds of flight guidance symbology to help pilots to improve the overall
flight precision. The method studied in this paper is to display navigation procedures in the form of guidance channels.
First releases of the described system used static channels, generated once at the startup at the system or even offline.
While this approach is very resource friendly for the avionics hardware, it does not consider the users, which want the
system to respond to the current flight conditions dynamically.
Therefore, a new application has been developed which generates both the general channel trajectory as well as the
channel depiction in a fully dynamic way while the pilot flies a navigation procedure.
In the past Jeppesen has built and distributed worldwide terrain models for several Terrain Awareness and Warning
Systems (TAWS) avionics clients. The basis for this model is a 30 arc-second NOAA Globe dataset with higher
resolution data used where available (primarily in the US). On a large scale however these terrain models have a 900m
(3000ft) resolution with errors that can often add up to 650m (1800ft) vertically. This limits the use of these databases to
current TAWS systems and is deemed unusable for other aviation applications like SVS displays that require a more
resolute and accurate terrain model.
To overcome this deficiency, the target of this project was to develop a new worldwide terrain database providing a
consistent terrain model that can be used by current (TAWS) and future applications (e.g. 2D moving maps, vertical
situation displays, SVS).
The basis for this project is the recently released SRTM data from NGA that provides a more resolute, accurate and
consistent worldwide terrain model. The dataset however has holes in the peak and valley regions, desert, and very flat
areas due to irrecoverable data capture issues. These voids have been filled using new topography algorithms developed
in this project.
The error distribution of this dataset has been analyzed in relation to topography, acquisition method and other factors.
Based on this analysis, it is now possible to raise the terrain a certain amount, such that it can be guaranteed that only a
certain number of real terrain points are higher than the data stored in the terrain database. Using this method, databases
for designated confidence levels of 10-3, 10-5 and 10-8 - called TerrainScape level 1 - 3 - have been generated.
The final result of the project is a worldwide terrain database with quality factors sufficient for use in a broader range of
civil aviation applications.
The paper describes flight trials performed in Centennial, CO with a Piper Cheyenne from Marinvent. Six pilots flew the Cheyenne in twelve enroute segments between Denver Centennial and Colorado Springs. Two different settings (paper chart, enroute moving map) were evaluated with randomized settings. The flight trial goal was to evaluate the objective performance of pilots compared among the different settings. As dependent variables, positional accuracy and situational awareness probe (SAP) were measured. Analysis was conducted by an ANOVA test. In parallel, all pilots answered subjective Cooper-Harper, NASA TLX, situation awareness rating technique (SART), Display Readability Rating and debriefing questionnaires.
The tested enroute moving map application has Jeppesen chart compliant symbologies for high-enroute and low-enroute. It has a briefing mode were all information found on today’s enroute paper chart together with a loaded flight plan are displayed in a north-up orientation. The execution mode displays a loaded flight plan routing together with only pertinent flight route relevant information in either a track up or north up orientation. Depiction of an own ship symbol is possible in both modes. All text and symbols are deconflicted. Additional information can be obtained by clicking on symbols. Terrain and obstacle data can be displayed for enhanced situation awareness.
The result shows that pilots flying the 2D enroute moving map display perform no worse than pilots with conventional systems. Flight technical error and workload are equivalent or lower, situational awareness is higher than on conventional paper charts.
This paper describes flight trials performed in Centennial, CO using a Piper Cheyenne owned and operated by Marinvent. The goal of the flight trial was to evaluate the objective performance of pilots using conventional paper charts or a 3D SVS display. Six pilots flew thirty-six approaches to the Colorado Springs airport to accomplish this goal. As dependent variables, positional accuracy and situational awareness probe (SAP) statistics were measured while analysis was conducted by an ANOVA test. In parallel, all pilots answered subjective Cooper-Harper, NASA TLX, situation awareness rating technique (SART), Display Readability Rating, Display Flyability Rating and debriefing questionnaires. Three different settings (paper chart, electronic navigation chart, 3D SVS display) were evaluated in a totally randomized manner. This paper describes the comparison between the conventional paper chart and the 3D SVS display. The 3D SVS primary flight display provides a depiction of primary flight data as well as a 3D depiction of airports, terrain and obstacles. In addition, a 3D dynamic channel visualizing the selected approach procedure can be displayed.
The result shows that pilots flying the 3D SVS display perform no worse than pilots with the conventional paper chart. Flight technical error and workload are lower, situational awareness is equivalent with conventional paper charts.
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