US Patent 7650232 Trajectory specification for high capacity air traffic control

Method and system for analyzing and processing information on one or more aircraft flight paths, using a four-dimensional coordinate system including three Cartesian or equivalent coordinates (x, y, z) and a fourth coordinate δ that corresponds to a distance estimated along a reference flight path to a nearest reference path location corresponding to a present location of the aircraft. Use of the coordinate δ, rather than elapsed time t, avoids coupling of along-track error into aircraft altitude and reduces effects of errors on an aircraft landing site. Along-track, cross-track and/or altitude errors are estimated and compared with a permitted error bounding space surrounding the reference flight path.