LANDING - Landing Software for Small-medium Aircraft on Small-medium Airfields
Overview
Background & policy context:
Small to medium-sized aircraft are not usually equipped with the latest expensive aviation technology. In parallel, small to medium-sized airports are also not always equipped with the latest airport landing-guidance technology, such as ILS. The small to medium-sized aircraft business is expanding rapidly, so there is an emerging need to develop low-cost and effective technologies that are inexpensive whist providing additional added assistance to pilots, such as landing during difficult weather. Such a pilot product will be produced by LANDING.
Objectives:
LANDING intended to deliver a low-cost software product (SW) assisting pilots of small-medium aircrafts to safely land on a small and poorly equipped fields, under bad-weather and low-visibility conditions. Thus, LANDING sought to offer an integral SW at a pre-industrial level as an 'add-on' for safety, which is loaded on 'portable' aircraft h/w navigation technologies.
LANDING should enable a pilot to use additional guidance during the three phases of the landing process:
- the 'approaching' phase in the far field or wide area of the landing field;
- the 'tunnelling' phase
- the 'runway' phase.
Methodology:
LANDING integrates seven s/w and data components:
- the geo-referenced position of the aircraft with the use of satellite and other data;
- the Stage-1 SW, based on input of digital information of the ambient space, available through commercial of-the-shelf (COTS) 3D digital maps, satellite data and elevation data;
- the Stage-2 SW, based on medium resolution input of the larger field vicinity;
- the Stage-3 SW, based on high resolution 3-D GIS data including all obstacles as input of the closer field vicinity;
- SW for the integration of the above components, providing the aircraft position within the digitally represented space;
- 3D-visualisation SW of the integrated flight guidance information on the hardware (HW); and
- the necessary approach 3D - databases and a high resolution digital airport database.
LANDING components run on COTS HW on-board:
- portable (this project) or panel mounted (possibility) computing equipment (e.g., pen-PC) with a fast rendering, and
- display for 3D visualisation. The SW is platform-independent.
The 3D terrain and other airport-, or field-, or terrain-data, are pre-installed on the HW. LANDING is cost affordable since it is addressed to small or business aircrafts, hydroplanes and helicopters, and delivers s/w development, applications, dissemination, and material for possible future certification.
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