Sensor Integrated Synthetic Vision System

An essential component of the Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) airplane cockpit instrumentation is a set of flight displays that provide the pilot with situational awareness not yet available with today's traditional instruments.Our innovative approach to combining an active Millimeter Wave sensor with a database-derived synthetic view will support and enable the SATS cornerstone concepts of self-separation for free flight, high-density operations and virtual terminal procedures during the transition period where the SATS aircraft must co-exist with conventionally equipped aircraft.The proposed Sensor Integrated Synthetic Vision System (SISVS), presenting a realistic daylight scene to the pilot under all environmental conditions, will be critical to the success of the SATS concept. Using a SISVS, the SATS pilot will be presented with information, not data. The pilot can develop situational awareness with less need for mental integration of disparate data, thus enabling less highly trained, non-professional pilots to fly safely in all weather and lighting conditions, and all phases of flight.