Aircraft health diagnostic device and aircraft health diagnostic method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2020239162-A1
Application number	US-201816652689-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	May 15, 2018
Priority date	Oct 6, 2017
Publication date	Jul 30, 2020
Grant date	—

Abstract

An aircraft health diagnostic device is provided with a control unit that carries out structural health monitoring of a structure of an aircraft. The control unit has a first risk assessment unit that assesses the risk of damage occurring in the structure on the basis of a correlation between reference data stored in a storage unit and a signal data set based on measurement data obtained through measurement carried out by a measuring instrument, a second risk assessment unit that assesses the risk of damage occurring in the structure on the basis of the time-sequence change in the behavior of the signal data set, and a maintenance assessment unit that assesses the life, repair timing, and a maintenance plan of the structure on the basis of the time-sequence change in the behavior of the signal data set.

First claim

1 . An aircraft health diagnostic device comprising:
a measuring instrument provided in an aircraft and acquiring measurement data related to the aircraft; a storage unit storing reference data as a diagnostic reference for the measurement data; and a control unit performing aircraft structural health monitoring on the basis of the measurement data and the reference data, wherein the control unit includes a first risk evaluation unit evaluating a risk of damage occurrence in the structure on the basis of a correlation between signal data calculated on the basis of the measurement data and the reference data, a second risk evaluation unit evaluating the risk of damage occurrence in the structure on the basis of a behavior of a time-series change in the signal data in which the first risk evaluation unit has evaluated that there is the risk of damage occurrence, and a maintenance evaluation unit evaluating a life of the structure, a repair timing, and a maintenance plan on the basis of the behavior of the time-series change in the signal data used in the second risk evaluation unit.

2 . The aircraft health diagnostic device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the control unit includes: a first control unit provided in the aircraft and including the first risk evaluation unit; a second control unit provided outside the aircraft and including the second risk evaluation unit and the maintenance evaluation unit; and an information communication unit performing information communication between the first control unit and the second control unit.

3 . The aircraft health diagnostic device according to claim 1 , wherein
the measuring instrument measures the measurement data at a plurality of positions of the structure and a plurality of times, also measures environmental data at the positions of the structure and the times, and associates the measurement data and the environmental data with each other, the storage unit stores the reference data set for each environment assumed as the environmental data at the plurality of positions of the structure where the measurement data is measured, and the control unit calculates the signal data at the plurality of positions of the structure and the plurality of times on the basis of the measurement data in a state of being associated with the environmental data.

4 . The aircraft health diagnostic device according to claim 1 , wherein the first risk evaluation unit calculates health index value on the basis of the signal data and evaluates whether the health index value does not exceed a range defined in a determination criteria acquired from the storage unit.

5 . The aircraft health diagnostic device according to claim 4 , wherein the second risk evaluation unit evaluates whether the health index value does not exceed the range defined in the determination criteria acquired from the storage unit for at least a period defined in the determination criteria in a time-series change in the health index value.

6 . The aircraft health diagnostic device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the measuring instrument includes: an optical fiber extending around the structure; and an optical fiber strain measuring instrument measuring strain data on the structure around which the optical fiber is extended by measuring a strain of the optical fiber.

7 . An aircraft soundness diagnostic method comprising:
a measurement data acquisition step of acquiring measurement data related to an aircraft; a first risk evaluation step of evaluating a risk of damage occurrence in a structure of the aircraft on the basis of a correlation between signal data calculated on the basis of the measurement data and reference data; a second risk evaluation step of evaluating the risk of damage occurrence in the structure on the basis of a behavior of a time-series change in the signal data in which it has been evaluated in the first risk evaluation step that there is the risk of damage occurrence; and a maintenance evaluation step of evaluating a life of the structure, a repair timing, and a maintenance plan on the basis of the behavior of the time-series change in the signal data used in the second risk evaluation step.

Assignees

• Mitsubishi Heavy Ind Ltd

Inventors

• Saito Nozomi
• Ishioka Masato

Classifications

• G05B23/0283

  Predictive maintenance, e.g. involving the monitoring of a system and, based on the monitoring results, taking decisions on the maintenance schedule of the monitored system; Estimating remaining useful life [RUL] (preventive maintenance, i.e. planning maintenance according to the available resources without monitoring the system G06Q10/06) · CPC title

• G05B19/0426

  Programming the control sequence · CPC title

• G01M5/0033

  by determining damage, crack or wear · CPC title

• G01M11/085 Primary

  the optical fiber being on or near the surface of the DUT · CPC title

• G01L1/242

  the material being an optical fibre · CPC title