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Abstract

An airport safety logic system includes a target state machine, a prediction engine, light-control logic, and alert logic. The target state machine receives a plurality of tracks, each of which includes information about an airport target object including a track number, position, velocity, acceleration, and a measure of the size of the airport target object. The target state machine also determines, for each track, a state of the airport target object at an airport including whether the object is stopped, taxi-ing, arriving, landing, aborting a landing, departing, or aborting a departure. The prediction engine utilizes, for each track, at least the position and the velocity of the object to predict a variety of things. The predictions include a maximum and a minimum distance the airport target object could travel in a period of time, and a maximum distance path and a minimum distance path the object could follow in that time period. The prediction engine also determines, if the state of the object is 'arriving,' whether the airport target object can land on a particular runway of the airport. The light-control logic controls runway-status lights of the airport based on the predictions and determinations made by the prediction logic. The alert logic determines if two or more objects are at risk of colliding based on the predictions and determinations made be the prediction logic, and then generates visual and audible alerts in an airport control tower of the airport if risk of collision exists.

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First Claim