MAX KINGSLEY-JONES / TOULOUSE
Airport navigation system will eventually be standard on all manufacturer's products
Airbus plans to begin testing an airport ground manoeuvring map display on its A340 development aircraft later this year. The display may become standard in the A380.
The navigation system, which has the project name "Taxi Driver", is designed to improve pilot situation awareness and will eventually be applied to all Airbus products, says Airbus executive vice-president engineering Alain Garcia. The study is partially funded by the French government.
As currently envisaged, Taxi Driver displays "airport maps and the aircraft symbol, and has zoom and panoramic capability", says Garcia. "It will tell a pilot where he is and where he has to go," he adds.
Garcia says testing of the system on A340 number one will begin this year, and the aim is to eventually provide the system across the product range. The A380 will have an improved version of the existing Airbus fly-by-wire flightdeck, and a moving airport map presentation is promised as a function of each pilot's navigation display.
Honeywell has developed its runway awareness and advisory system as a software upgrade to its enhanced ground-proximity warning system, due to be certificated this year. Honeywell says it does not expect airport map displays to become available "for years".
The A380's flightdeck will be the first to have a completely integrated avionics system, and the design could benefit from another Airbus technology demonstration programme - Victoria (validation platform for integration of standardised components, technologies and tools in an open, modular and improved aircraft electronic system).
This integrated modular avionics initiative is partially funded by the European Commission as part of the Fifth Framework programme for research and development. Garcia says it is targeted at all future Airbus products, and is examining innovative avionics solutions such as the development of standardised hardware for a variety of functions, and ways of reducing the weight, volume, costs and the power requirements of systems.
Source: Flight International
