Author : Raghavender.V , Rambabu Mokati , Anil Kumar.V Ȧ and H.Jeevan Rao

The “Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS)” is designed to alert pilots when the aircraft is in one of the defined hazardous situations, by generating visual and audio warnings/alerts. Controlled Flight into Terrain (CFIT) is an accident where the aircraft is flown into the ground while the aircraft is completely airworthy. EGPWS integrates terrain situational awareness with respect to current airplane position and predicted trajectory with an advanced Ground Proximity Warning System. EGPWS provides alert information to the flight crew both visually and aurally. A terrain map database will be used, which provides EGPWS a means to estimate a flight-path or selected changes thereof for approaching high grounds. Based on the aircraft’s position, terrain that is above or within 2,000 ft below the aircraft is presented on the system display. It is also included along with the basic functionality, to alert pilots in advance, so that they have sufficient time to overcome hazardous situations. For example situations like steep rise of terrain/obstacle in the path of aircraft won’t give sufficient time to crew to overcome. In this paper all the required features that enable to generate proper alerts at proper time are implemented. The VHDL language is used to write code for the EGPWS functionality. It is also designed to provide various defined colors on the display, which enable the crew to know terrain height variations in the surrounding area through which aircraft is moving.

Keywords: Terrain, Steep, CFIT, VHDL, Flight path.

Article published in International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Sciences 2014, Special Issue-2 (Feb 2014)