Patent ID: 8855906

Claim:
An aircraft traffic alerting system, comprising: a traffic alerting device onboard a subject aircraft having at least a high sensitivity mode and a low sensitivity mode; a position determining device onboard the subject aircraft and configured to communicate a determined position of the subject aircraft to the traffic alerting device; a database comprising (i) locations of airspaces, (ii) airspace classes and corresponding locations of the airspace classes, and (iii) aircraft types and characteristics of each aircraft type, the database being coupled in communication with the traffic alerting device, wherein at least one of the locations of airspaces and the locations of airspace classes includes predetermined airspace boundaries; responsive to the position determining device communicating the determined position of the subject aircraft, the traffic alerting device (a) searching the database using the determined position, by comparing the determined position to the locations of airspaces and predetermined airspace boundaries as stored in the database, and (b) minimizing false alarms and unnecessary alerts by automatically entering the low sensitivity mode when the determined position of the subject aircraft is within a predetermined airspace boundary of an airspace found in the database by the traffic alerting device, and automatically entering the high sensitivity mode when the determined position of the subject aircraft is outside of any predetermined airspace boundary of the airspaces found in the database by the traffic alerting device, wherein the position determining device continuously determines the position of the subject aircraft and the traffic alerting device continuously compares a presently determined position to the locations of airspaces and predetermined airspace boundaries stored in the database.