A runaway collision avoidance and alerting system

Abstract

Runway incursions have been a major concern in the aviation industry for several years and this has resulted in numerous initiatives to mitigate the risk of incursion, within both the United States and Europe. These range from awareness campaigns and improved signage to air traffic control alerting tools that are used in order to advise the air traffic controller of a runway incursion. Whilst these initiatives have undoubtedly provided improved levels of safety and contributed to the reduction of the numbers of incidents, up to now, they have not provided satisfactory mitigation to the problem. This is evidenced by the fact that, to date, the United States National Transportation Safety Board still keeps the topic of runway incursions in its top ten most wanted safety improvements list. This work focuses on the cockpit environment and presents a robust and effective method of alerting, to direct the crew into taking the necessary corrective action to mitigate a runway collision. In order to achieve this, techniques and algorithms have been developed capable of reliably detecting the occurrence of a runway conflict and working out a manoeuvre which provides the highest chances of successfully mitigating it. The algorithm and alerting scheme were evaluated with the help of volunteer pilots using Cranfield University's Large Aircraft Flight Simulator. The results indicate that the algorithm and alerting scheme can be of high value in the cockpit and can contribute towards improved safety in commercial aviation.