Honeywell International Inc.

John A Woltkamp

Mark Issac Snyder

Thomas M Leard

Kenneth T Hurt

Andrew E Elliott

Iris K Rundle

An electronic lateral acceleration indicator is provided that gives improved visual performance over previous electronic indicators. In a first embodiment, the lateral acceleration indicator includes a fine tuning element and a high level lateral acceleration element. The fine tuning element provides a precise reading of low level lateral acceleration. This allows a pilot to make small corrections to eliminate small amounts of lateral acceleration. The high level lateral acceleration element provides a strong visual indication when relatively high lateral acceleration is present. The strong visual indication provided by the high level lateral acceleration element increases the probability that the pilot will be made aware of the lateral acceleration. Thus, the lateral acceleration indicator of the present invention provides both fine tuning capability and a strong visual warning of large lateral acceleration to the pilot. In a second embodiment, the lateral acceleration indicator includes a lateral acceleration element that expands as lateral acceleration increases. This allows the pilot to quickly determine if lateral acceleration is occurring. Additionally, the rate of expansion in the lateral acceleration element relative to the increase in lateral mistrim can be tailored to provide improved visual scaling to the pilot.

Lateral acceleration indicator for aircraft

The present invention includes systems and methods which overcome the shortcomings of the prior art by providing improved control of cursor commands directed by a user (such as a pilot). Various embodiments of the invention include such user interface cursor control enhancements as caging, snapping, hysteresis, combinations of 'relative' and 'absolute' cursor data, integration of discrete button movement with continuous cursor movement, and different gain algorithms. The invention may be implemented in a cockpit display, a flight simulator, a graphical flight planning application, or in any other application having a graphical user interface.

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Fountain Hills, AZ, United States of America

John A Woltkamp