Extensible flight management systems and methods

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2019012921-A1
Application number	US-201715644501-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 7, 2017
Priority date	Jul 7, 2017
Publication date	Jan 10, 2019
Grant date	—

Abstract

Aircraft systems and related methods are provided for extensible flight management capabilities. One exemplary system includes a multifunction computing module including a user interface, a first processing system, and a first communications interface supporting a first data characteristic, and a flight management computing module. The flight management computing module includes at least one avionics interface to receive operational data from an avionics system onboard an aircraft and having a second data characteristic different from the first data characteristic, a second communications interface communicatively coupled to the first communications interface to the multifunction computing module, and a second processing system coupled to the avionics interface and the second communications interface to convert the operational data to input data having the first data characteristic and provide the input data to the multifunction computing module.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An aircraft system comprising:
a first computing module including a user interface, a first processing system, and a first communications interface supporting a first data characteristic; and a flight management computing module including:
an avionics interface to receive operational data from an avionics system onboard an aircraft having a second data characteristic different from the first data characteristic;
a second communications interface communicatively coupled to the first communications interface; and
a second processing system coupled to the avionics interface and the second communications interface to convert the operational data to input data having the first data characteristic and provide the input data to the first computing module at the second communications interface.

2 . The aircraft system of claim 1 , wherein:
the first computing module comprises a multifunction control and display unit (MCDU); and the flight management computing module comprises a flight management computer (FMC).

3 . The aircraft system of claim 2 , wherein:
the first communications interface comprises one of an A429 avionics bus interface, an A422 avionics bus interface, an A739 avionics bus interface, and an Ethernet interface; and the second communications interface comprises one of an A424 avionics bus interface, an A629 avionics bus interface, an A619 avionics bus interface, an A661 avionics bus interface, and an A702 avionics bus interface.

4 . The aircraft system of claim 2 , wherein the first processing system of the MCDU determines flight management data based at least in part on the input data and provides the flight management data to the FMC at the first communications interface.

5 . The aircraft system of claim 4 , wherein the second processing system of the FMC provides the flight management data to a second avionics system onboard the aircraft.

6 . The aircraft system of claim 4 , wherein the second processing system of the FMC converts the flight management data from a first format to command data having a different format and provides the command data to a second avionics system onboard the aircraft at a second avionics interface.

7 . The aircraft system of claim 2 , wherein:
the MCDU comprises a receiver to provide navigational data; and the first processing system of the MCDU determines flight management data based at least in part on the input data and the navigational data.

8 . The aircraft system of claim 7 , wherein the navigational data comprises altitude data and the flight management data comprises a command for executing an aircraft procedure.

9 . The aircraft system of claim 2 , wherein:
the user interface comprises a user input device to receive a user input; and the first processing system of the MCDU determines flight management data based at least in part on the input data and the user input.

10 . The aircraft system of claim 1 , wherein:
the flight management computing module comprises a display interface coupled to a display device onboard the aircraft; the first processing system of the first computing module determines flight management data based at least in part on the input data and provides the flight management data to the flight management computing module at the first communications interface; and the second processing system converts the flight management data from a first format to display data in a different format supported by the display interface and provides the flight management data to the display device at the display interface.

11 . The aircraft system of claim 1 , wherein:
the avionics interface comprises an avionics bus interface; and the second communications interface comprises an Ethernet interface.

12 . The aircraft system of claim 1 , wherein:
the first data characteristic comprises a first avionics communications format; and the second data characteristic comprises a second avionics communications format different from the first avionics communications format.

13 . The aircraft system of claim 1 , wherein the first computing module programs the second processing system to implement a data concentrator application, wherein the data concentrator application is configured to convert the operational data to the input data and provide the input data to the second communications interface.

14 . A method of utilizing a multifunction computing module with an aircraft comprising one or more onboard systems coupled to one or more interfaces of a flight management computer (FMC) onboard the aircraft, the method comprising:
obtaining, by the FMC, aircraft status data from the one or more onboard systems at the one or more interfaces, the aircraft status data having a first data characteristic; converting, by the FMC, the aircraft status data to have a second data characteristic different from the first data characteristic; providing, by the FMC, the converted aircraft status data at a communications interface communicatively coupled to the multifunction computing module; receiving, by the FMC, flight management data influenced by the aircraft status data from the multifunction computing module at the communications interface, the flight management data having the second data characteristic; converting, by the FMC, the flight management data to have a different data characteristic; and providing, by the FMC, the converted flight management data at one or more of the one or more interfaces of the FMC.

15 . The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
receiving, by the FMC from the multifunction computing module, instructions executable by a processing system of the FMC to provide a data concentrator application; and executing, by the processing system of the FMC, the instructions to reprogram the FMC to provide the data concentrator application at the FMC.

16 . The method of claim 14 , wherein:
the multifunction computing module comprises a multifunction control and display unit (MCDU); the flight management data comprises a flight management command determined by the MCDU; and providing the converted flight management data comprises the FMC providing a reformatted version of the flight management command to an avionics system onboard the aircraft for execution of the flight management command.

17 . The method of claim 14 , wherein:
the multifunction computing module comprises a multifunction control and display unit (MCDU); the flight management data comprises flight management display data determined by the MCDU; and providing the converted flight management data comprises the FMC providing a reformatted version of the flight management display data to a cockpit display coupled to the FMC.

18 . A computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that are executable by a processing system of the FMC to perform the method of claim 14 .

19 . A flight management computing module including:
an avionics interface to receive operational data from an avionics system onboard an aircraft in a first format; a communications interface supporting a second format different from the first format; a processing system coupled to the avionics interface and the communications interface; and a data storage element having instructions stored thereon that are executable by the processing system to provide a data concentrator configured to convert the operational data from the first format to the second format and provide the converted operational data to the communications interface.

Assignees

• Honeywell Int Inc

Inventors

• Pearson Mark
• Mccullough Susan
• Toews Phillip
• Wisner Todd
• Dairman Charles

Classifications

• B64D45/00

  Aircraft indicators or protectors not otherwise provided for · CPC title

• G08G5/003 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G08G5/30

  Flight plan management · CPC title

• H04L67/12 Primary

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• H04L69/08

  Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion · CPC title