Method and a system for monitoring the reliability of at least one piece of electronic equipment installed in an aircraft

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10006954-B2
Application number	US-201615377142-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 13, 2016
Priority date	Dec 18, 2015
Publication date	Jun 26, 2018
Grant date	Jun 26, 2018

Abstract

A monitor system for monitoring the reliability of at least one piece of electronic equipment installed in an aircraft. In order to monitor each piece of electronic equipment, such a monitor system comprises: monitor means for measuring variations of at least one state parameter P as a function of time t; concatenation means for generating data groups (t i , P i , S j ); transmission means for transmitting the data groups (t i , P i , S j ) to a centralized unit; first computation means for determining an observed reliability R obs of the or each piece of electronic equipment; second computation means for determining an expected reliability R exp of the or each piece of electronic equipment; comparator means for comparing the observed reliability R obs with the expected reliability R exp of the or each piece of electronic equipment; and warning means.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A monitoring method for monitoring the reliability of at least one piece of electronic equipment installed in an aircraft, wherein, for each of the at least one piece of electronic equipment, the monitoring method performs the following steps:
a measuring step for measuring variations of at least one state parameter P as a function of time t;
a concatenation step for generating data groups (t i , P i , S j ), each formed respectively by:
an instant t i representative of a sampling time parameter of the monitoring step of the monitoring method;
a value P i of the at least one state parameter P measured at the instant t i ; and
an identification number S j specific to the or each of the at least one piece of electronic equipment;

a transmission step for transmitting the data t i , P i , S j to a centralized unit serving to collect and store a set E of data groups (t i , P i , S j ) from a fleet of aircraft including the at least one piece of electronic equipment;
a first computation step for determining an observed reliability R obs of the at least one piece of electronic equipment for the fleet of aircraft, firstly from the set E of data groups (t i , P i , S j ) collected and stored in the centralized unit, and secondly from failure data D p generated when replacing a defective one of the at least one piece of electronic equipment;
a second computation step for determining an expected reliability R exp of the at least one piece of electronic equipment for the fleet of aircraft, firstly from the set E of data groups (t i , P i , S j ) collected and stored in the centralized unit and secondly from a predicted reliability R pred determined by calculation upstream from using the piece(s) of electronic equipment on the fleet of aircraft;
a comparison step of comparing the observed reliability R obs for the at least one piece of electronic equipment with the expected reliability R exp for the at least one piece of electronic equipment; and
a warning step for issuing a warning when the observed reliability R obs of the at least one piece of electronic equipment is less than the expected reliability R exp for the at least one piece of electronic equipment.

2. A monitoring method according to claim 1 , wherein the first computation step for determining an observed reliability R obs for the at least one piece of electronic equipment is obtained from an observed reliability of a sample R smpl , the sample comprising a limited number of the at least one piece of electronic equipment.

3. A monitoring method according to claim 1 , wherein the monitoring method includes at least one storage step enabling the data groups (t i , P i , S j ) specific to each piece of equipment to be stored.

4. A monitoring method according to claim 3 , wherein the at least one storage step is performed before the transmission step in order to transmit the data groups (t i , P i , S j ) to the centralized unit.

5. A monitoring method according to claim 3 , wherein the at least one storage step is performed after the transmission step for transmitting the data groups (t i , P i , S j ) to the centralized unit.

6. A monitoring method according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one state parameter P is selected from the group comprising the surrounding temperature, the surrounding humidity, the surrounding atmospheric pressure, the salinity level of the surrounding air, the pollution level of the surrounding air, the electrical power supply voltage, electrically switching on/off, and the waveform of the input/output signals of the electronic equipment.

7. A monitor system for monitoring the reliability of at least one piece of electronic equipment installed in an aircraft, wherein, in order to monitor each of the at least one piece of electronic equipment, the monitor system comprises:
monitoring means for measuring variations of at least one state parameter P as a function of time t;
concatenation means for generating data groups (t i , P i , S j ), each formed respectively by:
an instant t i representative of a sampling time parameter for the monitoring means;
a value P i of the at least one state parameter P measured at the instant t i ; and
an identification number S j specific to the or each of the at least one piece of electronic equipment;

transmission means for transmitting the data groups (t i , P i , S j ) to a centralized unit serving to collect and store a set E of data groups (t i , P i , S j ) from a fleet of aircraft including the at least one piece of electronic equipment;
first computation means for determining an observed reliability R obs of the at least one piece of electronic equipment for the fleet of aircraft, firstly from the set E of data groups (t i , P i , S j ) collected and stored in the centralized unit, and secondly from failure data D p generated when replacing a defective one of the at least one piece of electronic equipment;
second computation means for determining an expected reliability R exp of the or each piece of electronic equipment for the fleet of aircraft, firstly from the set E of data groups (t i , P i , S j ) collected and stored in the centralized unit and secondly from a predicted reliability R pred determined by calculation upstream from using the piece(s) of electronic equipment on the fleet of aircraft;
comparator means for comparing the observed reliability R obs for the at least one piece of electronic equipment with the expected reliability R exp for the at least one piece of electronic equipment; and
warning means for issuing a warning when the observed reliability R obs of the at least one piece of electronic equipment is less than the expected reliability R exp for the at least one piece of electronic equipment.

8. A monitor system according to claim 7 , wherein the monitor system includes at least one memory for storing the data groups (t i , P i , S j ) specific to each piece of electronic equipment.

9. A monitor system according to claim 8 , wherein the at least one memory is arranged on each of the aircraft of the fleet.

10. A monitor system according to claim 9 , wherein the at least one memory is arranged inside the at least one piece of electronic equipment.

11. A monitor system according to claim 9 , wherein the at least one memory is arranged outside the at least one piece of electronic equipment.

12. A monitor system according to claim 8 , wherein the at least one memory is arranged in the centralized unit outside each of the aircraft of the fleet.

13. A monitor system according to claim 7 , wherein the at least one state parameter P is selected from the group comprising the surrounding temperature, the surrounding humidity, the surrounding atmospheric pressure, the salinity level of the surrounding air, the pollution level of the surrounding air, the electrical power supply voltage, electrically switching on/off, and the waveform of the input/output signals of the electronic equipment.

Assignees

• Airbus Helicopters

Inventors

• Bailly Stephane
• Schmidt Vincent

Classifications

• G06F11/3058

  Monitoring arrangements for monitoring environmental properties or parameters of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring of power, currents, temperature, humidity, position, vibrations (thermal management in cooling arrangements of a computing system G06F1/206) · CPC title

• G06F11/3082

  the data filtering being achieved by aggregating or compressing the monitored data · CPC title

• G01R31/008 Primary

  on air- or spacecraft, railway rolling stock or sea-going vessels · CPC title

• G06F11/008 Primary

  Reliability or availability analysis · CPC title