Real time runway incursion cockpit advisory

Currently, alerts of potential runway incursions are generated by surveillance detection equipment and presented to air traffic controllers on display systems within the tower at properly equipped airports. In worst case scenarios, the process is performed manually by visual contact from aircrews or air traffic controllers. From the controller perspective, they must process this information, decipher specific aircraft of interest, and provide a warning or recommended resolution to the aircrew via voice communication. These "manual intervention" techniques result in reduced margin of safety in time critical incursion situations. The goal of the real-time runway incursion cockpit advisory flight test program is to add automation into this process by sending real-time runway incursion advisories directly to the flight crews of the potentially involved aircraft as well as to the air traffic controller. This paper describes the on-going collaboration between Sensis Corporation and Honeywell Aerospace to evaluate a ground and air solution for detecting, processing, and reporting real-time cockpit safety advisories in the event of a runway incursion. For this program, the surface taxi, short final approach, and immediate departure are the areas of interest. For these aircraft operating areas, advisories are generated and data linked to the specific flight crews. Sensis Corporation's airport surface detection equipment model X (ASDE-X) system installed as a test system at Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR) was used as the detection and conflict prediction system. The SYR ASDE-X implementation was optimized for detection of a set of primary runway incursion scenarios. The processing and calculation of aircraft positional information is accomplished by the ASDE-X multi-sensor data processor. Reporting of advisory conditions to the aircraft is accomplished through existing remote unit (RU) mode S encoded uplink at 1030 MHz. This demonstration program made use of seven unused values in an existing mode S message format field. On board the two potentially involved aircraft, Honeywell avionics receive and translate the values, map them to a predefined conflict type, and issue a corresponding audible alert to the flight crews. Any surface tracking system (ASDE-X or future other) capable of predicting aircraft position based on indicative dynamics can be used. The significant result from this demonstration is that for minimal investment of time and money a detecting ground system can be coupled via data link to existing avionics to gain precious seconds that may differentiate an avoided surface collision from disaster.