Swiss firm Garmin has developed dynamic aviation charting to produce clear and relevant data for pilots.

SmartCharts aims to provide pilots with a simplified and intuitive experience by producing charts tailored for their specific flight operation.

Initially available in the Garmin Pilot app, SmartCharts serves as the primary charting tool and allows pilots to view simplified terminal procedures, including instrument approach procedures, departure procedure, standard terminal arrival and airport diagrams.

“Terminal procedures have long been cluttered with outdated or superfluous information that may not be relevant to a pilot’s flight, obscuring important details that could be easily missed,” said Phil Straub, Garmin executive vice president. “Garmin SmartCharts allows all pilots to quickly and easily tailor procedures to highlight the most relevant and key information in a simplified, optimised format to ultimately help enhance safety and situational awareness.”

The technology was developed from the ground up by collecting and digitising data from global sources to create consistent, standardised and scalable charting. Garmin used those data to build a clear picture of information to fly charted procedures via a new user interface. This interface, coupled with the digital data, allows SmartCharts procedures to adjust and scale automatically as the pilot zooms and pans within the chart, similar to Garmin’s data-driven maps across its entire product line.

These data also allow SmartCharts to highlight details and notes that could be easily overlooked and lost on traditional charts, reducing the potential for error. The ability to scale the chart creates a clearer picture of the information needed to fly instrument procedures.

SmartCharts is designed to help optimise pilot workflow by providing only relevant data and reducing workload. Users can make selections – such as aircraft type, arrival and departure, approach transition fix, and runway – to simplify the chart down to the information needed to brief and fly a procedure.

Starting with standard terminal arrivals and instrument departures, the user selects their aircraft type, the route transition they are flying and the runway of intended use. This reduces depicted information to show only the routing, fixes, and crossing restrictions pertinent to their expected procedure. Quick access buttons also reveal pertinent procedure information such as briefings, communications frequencies and graphical missed approach icons so pilots can easily find and decipher needed information based on the phase of the procedure they are on.

During an approach procedure, approach minima are updated and presented to the pilot via easy selection buttons for aircraft category, approach type and adjustments such as local or other altimeter settings, inoperative airport lighting, flight director, or HUD use. Those selections then present only one minima number to reference, eliminating the need for mental maths with traditional charts.

Waypoints, legs, crossing restrictions and other details are then more clearly depicted on the chart as users make selections and adjustments. This ultimately removes unnecessary information from view, leaving the user with a single route in view to help reduce workload and the chance for errors.

After making selections on the chart, a simplified user-interface and layout allows for an intuitive briefing process. Pressing the brief, coms and missed approach buttons on each procedure will quickly show necessary information during procedure setup and briefing, also meaning often-forgotten notes are now in the spotlight.

Additionally, reselecting new transitions or the runway-in-use makes re-briefing these changes much faster and clearer, resulting in better situational awareness. Altitude and speed restrictions plus other pertinent details are clearly depicted on the plan view of approach, arrival and departure procedures.

The approach vertical profile view is geo-referenced with the aircraft appearing on the profile at its altitude. This feature adds situational awareness of the aircraft position relative to the approach path, terrain and obstacles.

SmartCharts is said to take airport diagrams to the next level by adding additional visual information such as airport lighting systems, hold short lines, other airport markings, and windsock locations. Like other SmartCharts procedures, airport diagrams also have quick access buttons at the top of the chart that showcase airport information such as communication frequencies, runway information and alternate minimums data. This design removes the need to memorise traditional airport symbols such as non-standard alternate minimums and makes alternate minima details easily accessible.

Garmin Pilot now includes a show with minima procedure sorting feature on the airport tab to help pilots more easily find SmartCharts procedures. They can sort approaches by criteria such as lowest minimums by altitude or visibility and available approach lighting. This can aid pilots by saving time in finding an approach that gets them the lowest legal minima, for instance. Additionally, recently released smart binders will group the charts by type – approach, departure, arrival or airport info – in the airport tab for easier and faster searching.

SmartCharts is available via a Garmin Pilot Premium subscription for iOS devices in the USA and the Bahamas at launch. All pilots can experience SmartCharts for themselves through a free trial available at Garmin.com/Aviation/GarminPilot/Downloads. To learn more, including how to use SmartCharts from chock-to-chock during operation, visit Garmin.com/SmartCharts.

Garmin (Garmin.com) is incorporated in Switzerland, and its principal subsidiaries are in the USA, Taiwan and UK.