Synthetic Vision Databases for Runway Incursion Avoidance

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Synthetic Vision Databases for Runway Incursion Avoidance

Damjanovic, Dejan M. / Ellerbrock, Rick

For a number of years, we have encountered the problems with aircraft runway incursions, and ground vehicle runway incursions. Following the tragic accident at Tenerife on March 27th, 1977, involving a KLM 747 and Pam Am 747 airliners colliding in the fog, the industry has striven to improve the safety of ground operations or airport surface movements. A number of enabling technologies have been emerging that has made that possible. These include the following: This paper discusses those technologies through the history of the projects that have put them into action.Industry trends have integrated those individual projects into a broader navigation paradigm, known as “Synthetic Vision”. This new idea seeks to broadly enhance the situational awareness of all phases of flight, including taxi, take-off, departure, enroute, arrival, approach, and finally landing, rollout, and taxi back to the gate.Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) offer the hope of providing a significant decrease, or the eventual elimination of most types of runway incursions, at all of those airports for which synthetic vision databases shall be constructed.This paper shall introduce the composition and design of these databases, for a general audience.Finally, this paper will explore the current industry & regulatory developments, concluding with the emergence of commercial projects that seek to bring Runway Incursion Avoidance technology into the realm of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions.