DEVICE AND METHOD FOR CHECKING AN AIRCRAFT LANDING GEAR SHOCK ABSORBER

• US 20150154819A1
• Filed: 04/23/2013
• Published: 06/04/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Airbus Operations Limited (Airbus SE)
• Original Assignee: Airbus Operations Limited (Airbus SE)
• Inventors: Wilson, Fraser, Wallis, Scott, Frost, Neil Terence
• Granted Patent: US 9,978,189 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B64C 25/58 Arrangements or adaptations of shock-absorbers or springs shimmy-dampers B64C25/50
• CPC Class Codes: B64D 2045/0085 Devices for aircraft health monitoring, e.g. monitoring flutter or vibration
• CPC Class Codes: B64D 45/00 Aircraft indicators or protectors not otherwise provided for camouflage F41H3/00
• CPC Class Codes: B64F 5/60 Testing or inspecting aircraft components or systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01M 17/04 Suspension or damping
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0808 Diagnosing performance data testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005

Abstract

An electronic device checks the pressure of an aircraft landing gear oleo by means of a camera capturing and processing an image of the oleo. An image recognition module processes the oleo image to extract a measure of the amount of extension of the oleo. This measure is then processed together with a measure of oleo temperature to calculate a pressure value representative of the expected pressure of the gas within the oleo, which can then be compared with another measurement of oleo pressure to determine whether the two are consistent or whether the oleo might be under- or over-filled with gas. The electronic device may be in the form of a hand-held smart phone or tablet device appropriately programmed with software.

Claims

1. An electronic device for checking a characteristic of the gas in an aircraft landing gear oleo, the device comprising a camera, an image recognition module, a temperature input module, a processing module, relationship data stored in the device concerning the relationship between (i) the temperature of the oleo, (ii) the extension of the oleo and (iii) the gas pressure within the oleo, and an output device, wherein the device is so arranged that in use:

the camera captures an image from which an extension of the oleo may be derived,

the image recognition module processes the image to extract a measure of the amount of extension of the oleo,

the processing module uses (a) a temperature inputted via the temperature input module and (b) the relationship data, and one or both of (c) the measure of the amount of extension of the oleo and (d) an independent pressure measurement concerning the pressure of gas in the oleo, to create an output, from which output a user may ascertain whether the characteristic of the gas in the aircraft landing gear oleo is at an acceptable level or not, and

the device causes the output to be provided by the output device.

2. A device according to claim 1, wherein the device is a handheld electronic device, with other functionality not related to oleo gas checking.

3. A device according to claim 2, wherein at least the image recognition module and the processing module are provided by one or more software-based applications installed on the device.

4. A device according to claim 1, wherein the device includes a temperature measuring module.

5. A device according to claim 1, wherein the device is suitable for measuring the extension of an oleo strut comprising an inner sliding tube and an outer casing in which the inner sliding tube slides, the exposed region of the inner sliding tube being indicative of the amount of extension of the oleo, and wherein the device is so arranged that the image recognition module and the processing module together enable the amount of extension of the oleo to be ascertained by using a measured width and height of the part of the image captured by the camera which defines the exposed region of the inner sliding tube, and a known value of the diameter of the inner sliding tube being measure.

6. A device according to claim 1, wherein the device includes a display screen on which the image captured by the camera is displayed.

7. A device according to claim 1, wherein the device accepts a user input of the gas pressure within the oleo, as measured by other means, and wherein the device is so arranged that the processing module produces the output by means of comparing (a) the user input of the gas pressure within the oleo and (b) a pressure value representative of the expected pressure of the gas within the oleo as calculated by the processing module, said pressure value being in the same units as the gas pressure obtained by means of the user input.

8. A device according to claim 1, wherein the device is arranged to check the gas characteristic of any one of a multiplicity of different types of aircraft landing gear oleos, each of which being so configured that the relationship between (i) the temperature of the oleo, (ii) the extension of the oleo and (iii) the gas pressure within the oleo, is different for each type of aircraft landing gear oleo.

9. A device according to claim 8, wherein the device has access to a database of aircraft landing gear oleos, the database including relationship data for each such aircraft landing gear oleo.

10. A device according to claim 9, wherein the device includes a landing gear oleo recognition module for recognising an aircraft landing gear oleo or its type and the device is arranged to ascertain the relationship data corresponding to an aircraft landing gear oleo so recognised.

11. A device according to claim 10, wherein the device the landing gear oleo recognition module is in the form of a bar-code scanning module.

12. A method of checking whether a characteristic of the gas in an aircraft landing gear oleo is acceptable or not, wherein the method comprises the following steps:

capturing an image which depends on the amount of extension of the oleo,

electronically processing the image to obtain a measure of the amount of extension of the oleo,

inputting a temperature value representative of the ambient temperature of the oleo, and

using an electronic processing unit to process (a) the temperature value and (b) relationship information that interrelates an oleo gas pressure value, the oleo temperature, and the amount of extension of the oleo, for the landing gear, and one or both of (c) the measure of the amount of extension of the oleo and (d) an independent pressure measurement concerning the pressure of gas in the oleo, to create an output, from which output a user may ascertain whether the characteristic of the gas in the aircraft landing gear oleo is at an acceptable level or not.

13. A method of checking whether a characteristic of the gas in an aircraft landing gear oleo is acceptable or not, wherein the method comprises the following steps:

capturing an image which depends on the amount of extension of the oleo with a hand-held electronic device,

processing the image with the hand-held electronic device to obtain an indication of the expected value of the characteristic of the gas in the oleo, and

outputting with the hand-held electronic device an output in dependence on that indication of the expected value.

14. A method according to claim 13, wherein the method includes a step of determining whether the amount of gas in the landing gear oleo appears to be within acceptable limits or not, and if not either removing or adding gas as appropriate.

15. A software product for programming a computer device to perform the method according to claim 13.