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Launch HN: Enhanced Radar (YC W25) – A safety net for air traffic control

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Enhanced Radar (YC W25) – A safety net for air traffic control

#81

Post by pj_mukh »

"The tower cleared JetBlue 1554 to depart on Runway 04, but simultaneously a ground controller on a different frequency cleared a Southwest jet to cross that same runway, putting them on a collision course. Controllers noticed the conflict unfolding and jumped in to yell at both aircraft to stop, avoiding a collision with about 8 seconds to spare "

As a regular passenger and for someone with a little bit of drone autonomy experience, the fact that this is possible sounds insane to me. I just assumed there was something blocking the controllers from putting two flights on the same pathway (like little planes on a board?).

My main question is, how does the "noticing" work now? What did the Controllers see that alerted them to what was unfolding?

Re: Launch HN: Enhanced Radar (YC W25) – A safety net for air traffic control

#82

Post by westurner »

westurner wrote: post #80

Can any aircraft navigation system plot drone Remote ID beacons on a map? How sensitive of a sensor array is necessary to trilaterate Remote ID signals and birds for aircraft collision avoidance? A Multispectral sensor array (standard) would probably be most robust. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40276191 : > Are there autopilot systems that do any sort of drone, bird, or other aerial object avoidance?

Remote ID: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_ID

Airborne collision avoidance system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_collision_avoidance_s...

"Ask HN: Next Gen, Slow, Heavy Lift Firefighting Aircraft Specs?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42665458

Re: Launch HN: Enhanced Radar (YC W25) – A safety net for air traffic control

#83

Post by westurner »

westurner wrote: post #80

Can any aircraft navigation system plot drone Remote ID beacons on a map? How sensitive of a sensor array is necessary to trilaterate Remote ID signals and birds for aircraft collision avoidance? A Multispectral sensor array (standard) would probably be most robust. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40276191 : > Are there autopilot systems that do any sort of drone, bird, or other aerial object avoidance?

Oh, weather radar would help pilots too:

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43260690 :

> "The National Weather Service operates 160 weather radars across the U.S. and its territories. Radar detects the size and motion of particles in rain, snow, hail and dust, which helps meteorologists track where precipitation is falling. Radar can even indicate the presence of a tornado [...]"

Re: Launch HN: Enhanced Radar (YC W25) – A safety net for air traffic control

#84

Post by stevage »

tjlahr wrote: post #76

I was thinking about this the other day. To me, the future is decreasing the amount of coordination that happens verbally over VHF. Ignoring takeoff clearances for a moment, my limited understanding is that most traffic in and out of an airport follows a prescribed pattern: You take off, turn to some particular bearing, climb to some particular altitude, contact center on some particular frequency... etc. Listening t…

>Instead of the controller verbally telling the pilot where to go, it seems feasible that the controller (or some coordinating software) could just digitally tell the plane where to go.

An intermediate step would at least be transmitting those instructions digitally and showing it on a map that the pilot can follow. There have been a number of incidents where pilots misunderstood where they were, and incorrectly followed instructions.

Re: Launch HN: Enhanced Radar (YC W25) – A safety net for air traffic control

#85

Post by westurner »

westurner wrote: post #80

Can any aircraft navigation system plot drone Remote ID beacons on a map? How sensitive of a sensor array is necessary to trilaterate Remote ID signals and birds for aircraft collision avoidance? A Multispectral sensor array (standard) would probably be most robust. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40276191 : > Are there autopilot systems that do any sort of drone, bird, or other aerial object avoidance?

From today, just now; fish my wish!

"Integrated sensing and communication based on space-time-coding metasurfaces" (2025-03) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43261825

Re: Launch HN: Enhanced Radar (YC W25) – A safety net for air traffic control

#86

Post by hugh-avherald »

tjlahr wrote: post #76

I was thinking about this the other day. To me, the future is decreasing the amount of coordination that happens verbally over VHF. Ignoring takeoff clearances for a moment, my limited understanding is that most traffic in and out of an airport follows a prescribed pattern: You take off, turn to some particular bearing, climb to some particular altitude, contact center on some particular frequency... etc. Listening t…

There are STAR and SID procedures that are 90% of what you're proposing. A pilot is at the top of descent and is told "Descend via the SID" which takes them to final approach.

As a pilot, I am surprised by how important audio communication is for retention and awareness. Given that my visual senses are (nearly) overwhelmed with information, I think there is a risk that moving ATC from audio to visual would simply saturate the "visual channel" of pilots.

In terms of automating coordination, it's obviously possible but it would take decades to prove its relative safety. (Aviation is extremely safe.) The system would be very fragile, unless you had 24/7 fully staffed backup human ATC, which rather defeats the purpose. Practically speaking too, planes take a long time to build, and the current system allows planes built 80 years ago to fly alongside brand new ones. The cost of abolishing the 'legacy fleet' (i.e. all current passenger aircraft) is pretty high!

Re: Launch HN: Enhanced Radar (YC W25) – A safety net for air traffic control

#88

Post by dehrmann »

jimnotgym wrote: post #49
lxe wrote: post #47

I was thinking along the same exact lines: Why do we still rely on analog narrowband AM voice over VHF to do vital comms like air traffic control? Same way as we did in the 1940s! We should be transcribing the messages and relaying them digitally with signatures and receipt acknowledgement.

Isn't it because AM audio is still understandable under very suboptimal conditions where digital might not get through? Digital narrowband data modes tend to pass very small amounts of data

A lot of ATC seems to use lowest common denominator tech so that you an fly a Cessna into JFK.

Re: Launch HN: Enhanced Radar (YC W25) – A safety net for air traffic control

#89

Post by lxe »

DF1PAW wrote: post #58
lxe wrote: post #47

I was thinking along the same exact lines: Why do we still rely on analog narrowband AM voice over VHF to do vital comms like air traffic control? Same way as we did in the 1940s! We should be transcribing the messages and relaying them digitally with signatures and receipt acknowledgement.

AM modulation is perfectly justified in this context: if two (or more) stations accidentally transmit at the same time, this will be noticed. Using FM, only the stronger signal wins and the other signal remains undetected. The advantage over digital transmission is the lack of coding overhead - the voice reaches the receiver without any time delay.

The justification still holds, but better tech with the same benefits exists nowadays.

As far as digital decoding delay is concerned, this is a negligible number if implemented correctly.

Re: Launch HN: Enhanced Radar (YC W25) – A safety net for air traffic control

#90

Post by westurner »

westurner wrote: post #80

Can any aircraft navigation system plot drone Remote ID beacons on a map? How sensitive of a sensor array is necessary to trilaterate Remote ID signals and birds for aircraft collision avoidance? A Multispectral sensor array (standard) would probably be most robust. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40276191 : > Are there autopilot systems that do any sort of drone, bird, or other aerial object avoidance?

Are there already bird not a bird datasets?

Procedures for creating "bird on Multispectral plane radar and video" dataset(s):

Tag birds on the dashcam video with timecoded sensor data and a segmentation and annotation tool.

Pinch to zoom, auto-edge detect, classification probability, sensor status

voxel51/fiftyone does segmentation and annotation with video and possibly Multispectral data: https://github.com/voxel51/fiftyone

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