Method and system aboard an aircraft for generating an anomaly report

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9796481-B2
Application number	US-201514886743-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 19, 2015
Priority date	Oct 20, 2014
Publication date	Oct 24, 2017
Grant date	Oct 24, 2017

Abstract

A method and system for generating an alert report on board an aircraft, comprising an on-board acquiring module configured to acquire data relating to the aircraft, the data originating from sensors and/or equipment installed in the aircraft. An on-board processing module is configured to detect possible anomalies by automatically partitioning the data into a set of homogeneous groups, each anomaly being revealed by a corresponding datum belonging to no homogeneous group. An on-board alert-emitting module is configured to emit an alert report on each detection of an anomaly. An on-board transmitting module is configured to transmit the alert report to the ground and in real-time.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for generating an alert report on board an aircraft, the system comprising:
an on-board acquiring module configured to acquire data relating to the aircraft, the data originating from at least one of sensors and equipment installed in the aircraft;
an on-board processing module configured to detect possible anomalies by automatically partitioning the data into a set of homogeneous groups, wherein the processing module is configured to automatically partition the data using a semi-supervised learning technique by comparing the data to abnormal learning data recorded in an on-board knowledge database;
an acquiring unit configured to acquire learning data relating to at least one aircraft;
a smoothing unit configured to smooth the learning data, thus forming smoothed learning data;
a processing unit configured to automatically partition the smoothed learning data using an unsupervised learning technique generating a first class of normal learning data and a second class of abnormal learning data;
a recording unit configured to record the abnormal learning data in a knowledge database corresponding to the on-board knowledge database;
an on-board alert-emitting module configured to emit an alert report on each detection of an anomaly; and
an on-board transmitting module configured to transmit the alert report to the ground and in real-time.

2. The system as claimed in claim 1 , comprising:
an on-board buffer memory configured to buffer the data acquired by the acquiring module; and
an on-board smoothing module configured to smooth the buffered data before the data is processed by the processing module.

3. The system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the acquiring unit is configured to acquire the learning data from a first data source comprising ACMS recordings of a set of aircraft and of various flights or other data sources comprising manual requests, electronic logbooks and maintenance reports of the set of aircrafts.

4. An aircraft comprising a generating system as claimed in claim 1 .

5. A method for generating an alert report on board an aircraft, comprising:
acquiring data relating to the aircraft originating from at least one of sensors and equipment installed in the aircraft;
detecting possible anomalies by automatically partitioning the data into a set of homogeneous groups, wherein the data is partitioned using a semi-supervised learning technique by comparing the data to abnormal learning data recorded in a knowledge database installed on board the aircraft, wherein the knowledge database is constructed on the ground by:
acquiring learning data relating to at least one aircraft;
smoothing the learning data, thus forming smoothed learning data;
automatically partitioning the smoothed learning data using an unsupervised learning technique generating a first class of normal learning data and a second class of abnormal learning data;
recording the abnormal learning data in the knowledge database; and
installing the knowledge database on board the aircraft;

emitting an alert report on each detection of an anomaly; and
transmitting the alert report to the ground and in real-time.

6. The method as claimed in claim 5 , comprising periodically updating the knowledge database.

Assignees

• Airbus Operations Sas
• Airbus Operations (S A S)

Inventors

• Dani Mohamed-Cherif
• Silveira Freixo Cassiano

Classifications

• G05B23/0251

  Abstraction hierarchy, e.g. "complex systems", i.e. system is divided in subsystems, subsystems are monitored and results are combined to decide on status of whole system · CPC title

• B64D2045/0085

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

• G06N99/005

  Physics · mapped topic

• G07C5/008

  communicating information to a remotely located station (transmission systems for measured values G08C) · CPC title

• G07C5/0808

  Diagnosing performance data (testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005) · CPC title