Patent ID: 7728758

Claim:
An aircraft radar system for maintaining airspace hazard data in a given airspace comprising: airspace detection equipment; a communication interface for engaging in communications with one or more other radar systems; a navigation system interface for communicating with an aircraft navigation system; a user interface; a processor; data storage; airspace hazard data stored in the data storage; and program instructions stored in the data storage and executable by the processor to carry out functions including: breaking the given airspace into a first plurality of smaller airspaces and a second plurality of smaller airspaces, wherein each of the second plurality of smaller airspaces contains two or more of the first plurality of smaller airspaces; detecting local airspace hazard data for each of the plurality of smaller airspaces located within a detectable range of the aircraft radar system; receiving remote airspace hazard data from the one or more other radar systems; updating the airspace hazard data stored in data storage; and transmitting the airspace hazard data stored in data storage for receipt by the one or more other radar systems.