Patent ID: 7974773

Claim:
A system for providing taxi navigation information to a pilot of an aircraft, the system comprising: an aircraft navigation system for providing aircraft position data; a database comprised of taxi navigation data; a processor configured to receive aircraft position data from the aircraft navigation system, retrieve taxi navigation data corresponding to the aircraft position data from the database, determine a first surface and at least one intersection of airport surfaces based upon the taxi navigation data, where the first surface is the airport surface on which the aircraft is located, and each intersection of airport surfaces is located in front of the aircraft and is formed by the intersection of the first surface and a second surface, further where a left intersection of airport surfaces is an intersection at which the aircraft may turn left onto a second surface from the first surface, and a right intersection of airport surfaces is an intersection at which the aircraft may turn right onto a second surface from the first surface, provide taxi navigation symbology data to an aircraft indicating system, where the taxi navigation symbology data is representative of at least one airport sign, where each intersection of airport surfaces is denoted by one airport sign comprised of a visible graphical object within which the identifier of the second surface of such intersection is depicted along with a directional symbol if applicable, such that one airport sign indicative of the closest left intersection is presented in a left presenting area when at least one left intersection exists, and one airport sign indicative of the closest right intersection is presented in a right presenting area when at least one right intersection exists, where the left presenting area is found to the left of a first area, the right presenting area is found to the right of the first area, and a bottom presenting area is found below the first area, below the left presenting area, and below the right presenting area, where such presenting areas are located outside of the first area but inside a second area, where the first area is the area within which navigation symbology representative of at least speed, attitude, and altitude is presented, the second area is larger than the first area, and the second area encompasses the first area; and the indicating system configured to receive the taxi navigation symbology data, whereby an egocentric view of at least one airport sign is presented on a display unit of the aircraft indicating system, and thus airport surface intersection information is presented to the side of the area of navigation symbology.