US 12,078,731 B2
Determining outages of a satellite navigation system and signal interference
Sabine Rath, Zwingenberg (DE); Andreas Sindlinger, Weinheim (DE); and Ralf Rene Cabos, Hainburg (DE)
Assigned to The Boeing Company, Chicago, IL (US)
Filed by The Boeing Company, Chicago, IL (US)
Filed on Apr. 29, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/733,333.
Prior Publication US 2023/0350074 A1, Nov. 2, 2023
Int. Cl. G01S 19/21 (2010.01); G01S 19/14 (2010.01); G01S 19/42 (2010.01); G08G 5/00 (2006.01)
CPC G01S 19/21 (2013.01) [G01S 19/14 (2013.01); G01S 19/215 (2013.01); G01S 19/42 (2013.01); G08G 5/0021 (2013.01); G08G 5/0047 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An apparatus for supporting flight operations of aircraft, the apparatus comprising:
a memory configured to store computer-readable program code; and
processing circuitry configured to access the memory, and execute the computer-readable program code to cause the apparatus to at least:
access a data stream of geographic positions of aircraft on respective flights, the geographic positions obtained from automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) position reports, or estimated independent of the ADS-B position reports, those of the geographic positions obtained from the ADS-B position reports determined using a satellite navigation system;
track the geographic positions of the aircraft to determine a number of the respective flights for which the geographic positions change from being obtained from the ADS-B position reports, to being estimated independent of the ADS-B position reports;
determine an outage in which the satellite navigation system is unavailable to the aircraft, based on the number of the respective flights for which the geographic positions change from the ADS-B position reports to estimated independent of the ADS-B position reports, and based on a threshold;
generate an outage notification that is output to alert users of the outage;
wherein the respective flights of the aircraft are in an airspace that is divided into geographic areas; and
wherein the outage is determined for a geographic area of the geographic areas along the respective flights based on those of the geographic positions of the aircraft within the geographic area that change from being obtained from the ADS-B position reports, to being estimated independent of the ADS-B position reports.