In perfect weather, when the sun is shining and the skies are clear, a commercial airline pilot can park an airplane within 1 m of the disembarka-Ⅰ tion point, where a motorized bridge can connect properly with the passenger exit door 99 out of 100 times. However, at nighttime or in fog, rain, or snow, the usual markers and visual points a pilot or ground marshal uses to manually guide an aircraft to the disembarkation point are difficult to spot. Using algorithms originally developed at the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (Munich, Germany), Honeywell Airport Systems GmbH (Wiedel, Germany) has developed its Visual Guided Docking System (VGDS). Installed at airports in Germany, China, and Korea, the system includes a high-dynamic-range CMOS camera to collect images of incoming aircraft, a Sun Microsystems (Santa Clara, CA, USA) UltraSparc Ⅱ workstation to process the image of the incoming aircraft and communicate with the flight information system (FIS) and airport operations database (AOD), and a wall-mounted, oversized LCD to give the pilot directions and distance for parking the plane at the proper disembarkation point.
展开▼
