Method and system for monitoring the soundness of helicopters

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10513345-B2
Application number	US-201716342927-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 18, 2017
Priority date	Oct 25, 2016
Publication date	Dec 24, 2019
Grant date	Dec 24, 2019

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for monitoring the soundness of helicopters comprising the determination of the severity of a plurality of flight missions of a plurality of helicopters, comprising a step for acquiring and storing flight data from helicopter flight missions, and a step for acquiring and storing maintenance data from the plurality of helicopters. The method is characterised in that said determination comprises a mission-type construction step, comprising a sub-step for constructing descriptors, a sub-step for partitioning the descriptors and a sub-step for allocating a mission type to each flight by associating the descriptor of said flight and a sub-set, in which this descriptor is found, and a step for interpreting the severity of the mission types, comprising a sub-step for estimating the severity models, and a sub-step for associating a severity model with each mission type determined in the mission type construction step.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. Method for monitoring the soundness of helicopters comprising the determination of the severity of a plurality of flight missions of a plurality of helicopters, said determination comprising:
a step for the acquisition and storage of mission flight data of helicopters, said flight data comprising for each flight of a helicopter the physical data recorded by at least one sensor of the helicopter,
a step for the acquisition and storage of the maintenance data of the plurality of helicopters, said maintenance data comprising at least the information relating to failures of the components of each helicopter and to the components that are replaced in each helicopter as a consequence of the flight missions,
the method comprising:
a step for constructing the mission type, comprising:
a sub-step for constructing relative descriptors, wherein the physical flight data is reduced to a vector with a predetermined dimension forming a descriptor, all of the descriptors having the same dimension,
a sub-step for partitioning the descriptors, adapted to partition the descriptors into sub-sets forming the types of mission,
a sub-step for allocating a type of mission to each flight by associating the descriptor of said flight with the subset wherein the descriptor is located, and for creating a model of the types of mission associating the physical data relating to the flight to each type of mission,

a step for interpreting the severity of the types of mission, comprising:
a sub-step for estimating severity models from the flight data and the maintenance data, each severity model defining an estimation of the ageing of the helicopter components based on the types of mission,
a sub-step for associating a severity model to each type of mission determined in the step for constructing the types of mission.

2. The method for monitoring the soundness of helicopters according to claim 1 , wherein the step for constructing mission types comprises a sub-step for selecting the physical data from among the physical flight data, prior to the sub-step for constructing descriptors, by removing the recorded physical data relating to the soundness of the helicopter engine and retaining the physical data relating to the engine use.

3. The method for monitoring the soundness of helicopters according to claim 1 , wherein the step for constructing the type of mission comprises a sub-step for reducing the dimension of the descriptors prior to the sub-step for allocating the types of mission, through a multivariate data analysis of the descriptors.

4. The method for monitoring the soundness of helicopters according to claim 3 , wherein the descriptor dimension reduction sub-step is performed with a method selected from among the following methods:
principal component analysis,
autoencoder method,
ISOMAP method
T-SNE method,
multi-dimensional scaling,
Linear Local Embedding method.

5. The method for monitoring the soundness of helicopters according to claim 1 , wherein the step for constructing the type of mission comprises a sub-step for standardising the descriptors prior to the sub-step for partitioning the descriptors.

6. The method for monitoring the soundness of helicopters according to claim 5 , wherein the sub-step for standardising the descriptors performs a standardisation selected from among the following standardisation methods:
L1 norm,
Wasserstein metric,
chi-squared norm,
Bhattacharyya distance.

7. The method for monitoring the soundness of helicopters according to claim 1 , wherein the sub-step for partitioning performs a partitioning selected from among the following partitioning methods:
K-means method,
DBSCAN method,
mean deviation method.

8. The method for monitoring the soundness of helicopters according to claim 1 , wherein the sub-step for constructing relative descriptors comprises the creation, for each type of physical data, of a histogram comprising a predetermined number n of classes, the descriptor forming a vector of dimension n, of which each component is equal to the number of items of physical data comprised in a class of the histogram.

9. The helicopter maintenance method comprising a step for determining the severity using a method for determining the severity according to claim 1 and a step of determining the type of mission carried out by the helicopter from the flight data of the helicopter and the mission type model, and a step for scheduling maintenance operations based on the severity model associated with said type of determined mission, and a step for carrying out maintenance operations according to said maintenance operation schedule.

10. System for monitoring the soundness of helicopters comprising a device for determining the severity of a plurality of flight missions of a plurality of helicopters, wherein said device comprises:
a database comprising mission flight data of helicopters, said flight data comprising for each flight of a helicopter the physical data recorded by at least one sensor of the helicopter,
a database comprising the maintenance data of the plurality of helicopters, said maintenance data comprising at least the information relating to failures of the components of each helicopter and to the components that are replaced in each helicopter as a consequence of the flight missions,
a module for constructing the mission type, comprising:
means for constructing relative descriptors, wherein the physical flight data is reduced to a vector with a predetermined dimension forming a descriptor, all of the descriptors having the same dimension,
means for partitioning the descriptors, adapted to partition the descriptors into sub-sets forming the types of mission,
means for allocating a type of mission to each flight by associating the descriptor of said flight with the subset wherein the descriptor is located, and for creating a model of the types of mission associating the physical data relating to the flight to each type of mission,

a module for interpreting the severity of the types of mission, comprising:
means for estimating severity models from the flight data and the maintenance data, each severity model defining an estimation of the ageing of the helicopter components based on the types of mission,
means for associating a severity model to each type of mission determined by the module for constructing the types of mission.

Assignees

• Safran
• Safran Helicopter Engines

Inventors

• Razakarivony Sebastien Philippe
• Goudet Francois

Classifications

• G07C5/02

  Registering or indicating driving, working, idle, or waiting time only (apparatus forming part of taximeters G07B13/00) · CPC title

• B64D45/00 Primary

  Aircraft indicators or protectors not otherwise provided for · CPC title

• B64F5/60 Primary

  Testing or inspecting aircraft components or systems · CPC title

• B64D2045/0085

  Devices for aircraft health monitoring, e.g. monitoring flutter or vibration · CPC title

• G06Q10/20 Primary

  Administration of product repair or maintenance · CPC title