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 The Problem
A large contributing factor to the injuries and unplanned
costs caused by turbulence encounters is that flight crews
do not have sufficient awareness of the location and
severity of the turbulence hazards. Upwards of 80% of
aircraft turbulence encounters occur in and around
convective activity (thunderstorms, cold and warm fronts).
Most commercial aircraft currently possess an
airborne weather radar, which they use to detect convective
weather activity based on reflectivity. Many of these
weather radars have a turbulence mode function designed to
display regions of turbulence. The problem is that, due to
the currently implemented processing techniques used to
identify the turbulence, this turbulence function produces
numerous false turbulence detections and sometimes does not
even identify turbulence that actually exists. The
current turbulence function does not differentiate between
aircraft types or various configurations – a Boeing 737
would display the same magenta picture as an Airbus A380
when in fact these aircraft would react much differently to
the turbulence.
These false and missed detections have resulted in many
pilots not trusting the turbulence function. In fact, many
pilots have stated that they just leave the turbulence
function off. This results in the aircrew receiving no
turbulence warning information from the onboard weather
radar. Instead they rely on attempting to remain clear of
the stronger radar reflectivity returns to avoid the worst
of the convective turbulence. Research has shown that the
location and severity of turbulence do not correlate with
reflectivity, so this method of turbulence avoidance is also
inaccurate and potentially both unsafe and inefficient to
flight operations.
ATR's Approach
Recognizing the need to provide more reliable and relevant
turbulence information to the cockpit, AeroTech Research (ATR)
developed the Enhanced Turbulence (E-Turb) Hazard Prediction
Algorithm for aircraft weather radars. The information
provided by AeroTech’s Hazard Prediction Algorithm reflects
the turbulence hazard to the pilot’s specific aircraft at
its current flight conditions and presents turbulence hazard
information far enough ahead to allow some action to be
initiated. With the hazard forewarning, the pilots may be
able to avoid the encounter or at a minimum prepare the
cabin and its occupants. Also, in order to increase pilots’
confidence in the detections, AeroTech’s Algorithm minimizes
the number of false detections (“nuisance detections”) and
the missed detections which plague the current system
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