AST Receives 16th Patent

February 17, 2016

AST Receives 16th Patent

AST’s intellectual property continues to grow as the US Patent office approved the company’s 16th patent. The company’s patents cover a wide range of innovations related to measuring runway surface conditions from data provided by landing aircraft, using onboard sensors to calculate braking conditions, and tire and brake wear. The condition reports are communicated through the use of proprietary methods across a wide variety of network connections.

Starting 2016, AST’s SafeLand™ software has been installed on over 1,000 passenger jet aircraft registered to United States airlines. Additionally, during 2016 American Airlines will be loading AST’s script on all A319, A320, and A321 aircraft inherited in the USAir merger. This will represent approximately 267 aircraft, significantly increasing the number of landing friction reports generated when SafeLand™-connected aircraft land. AST has recorded well over 2 million landings to date, providing a wealth data for validation and research purposes. De-identification protocols ensure anonymity of each report.

The Company’s newly approved patents to date include the following:

• Patent #8,855,886: Device for calculating and communicating the true aircraft braking coefficient of a runway or taxiway using data from the flight data management systems of landed aircraft
• Patent #8,954,254: Computer network for calculating and distributing the true aircraft braking friction coefficient for an aircraft runway or taxiway using data received from an aircraft’s on board flight data management system
• Patent #9,073,633: computer network for calculating aircraft cornering friction based on data received from an aircraft’s on board flight data management system
• Patent #9,260,183: Computer network for calculating and distributing a true aircraft braking coefficient/normalized aircraft braking coefficient-broadened