Air cargo power drive unit for detecting motion of an overlying cargo container
First Claim
1. A method of detecting motion of an unit load device in a cargo hold of an aircraft, comprising:
- providing a floor of the cargo hold of an aircraft with a power drive unit having a motor, at least one driver roller element coupled to said motor, a light source, a light detector, and a processor having a memory associated therewith for storing instructions;
emitting, with the light source, a plurality of pulses of light in a direction of an underside of an unit load device, when an unit load device is over the power drive unit;
detecting, with the light detector, light reflected from the underside of the unit load device;
sampling the detected light to form a time series of digital samples, each digital sample representative of an intensity of reflected light; and
performing calculations on a plurality of said digital samples to determine whether the unit load device is moving, wherein;
said calculations include at least one from the group consisting of;
(a) determining the number of spikes among the digital samples; and
(b) taking at least one statistic of the digital samples and comparing said at least one statistic with a corresponding at least one threshold.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An air cargo power drive unit has a motor, at least one driver roller element coupled to said motor, a light source, a light detector, and a processor having memory associated therewith, said memory storing instructions. The device is configured to emit light from the light source, receive reflected light from the light detector when an air cargo is overhead, and convert the detected light into a time series of a digital samples representing a time-varying intensity of the received light. The processor then performs calculations on the digital samples to determine whether the unit load device is moving. This determination may be based, for instance, on spikes among the digital samples, and/or on first, second, or even higher-order, statistics of the detected samples.
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Citations
28 Claims
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1. A method of detecting motion of an unit load device in a cargo hold of an aircraft, comprising:
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providing a floor of the cargo hold of an aircraft with a power drive unit having a motor, at least one driver roller element coupled to said motor, a light source, a light detector, and a processor having a memory associated therewith for storing instructions; emitting, with the light source, a plurality of pulses of light in a direction of an underside of an unit load device, when an unit load device is over the power drive unit; detecting, with the light detector, light reflected from the underside of the unit load device; sampling the detected light to form a time series of digital samples, each digital sample representative of an intensity of reflected light; and performing calculations on a plurality of said digital samples to determine whether the unit load device is moving, wherein; said calculations include at least one from the group consisting of; (a) determining the number of spikes among the digital samples; and (b) taking at least one statistic of the digital samples and comparing said at least one statistic with a corresponding at least one threshold. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. An air cargo power drive unit comprising:
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a motor, at least one driver roller element coupled to said motor, a light source, a light detector, and a processor having a memory associated therewith for storing instructions that, when executed by said processor, cause the processor to; cause the light source to emit a plurality of pulses of light in a direction of an underside of an unit load device, when an unit load device is located over the power drive unit; obtain a time series of digital samples, each digital sample representative of an intensity of light reflected from an underside surface of an unit load device and detected by the light detector, when an unit load device is located over the power drive unit; and perform calculations on a plurality of said digital samples to determine whether the unit load device is moving, wherein said calculations include at least one from the group consisting of; (a) determining the number of spikes among the digital samples; and (b) taking at least one statistic of the digital samples and comparing said at least one statistic with a corresponding at least one threshold. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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27. A cargo aircraft having an air cargo loading system including at least one power drive unit, the at least one power drive unit having an unit load device overhead, said at least one power drive unit comprising:
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a motor, at least one driver roller element coupled to said motor, a light source, a light detector, and a processor having a memory associated therewith for storing instructions that, when executed by said processor, cause the processor to; cause the light source to emit a plurality of pulses of light in a direction of an underside of the unit load device; obtain a time series of digital samples, each digital sample representative of an intensity of light reflected from an underside of an unit load device and detected by the light detector; and perform calculations on a plurality of said digital samples to determine whether the unit load device is moving;
whereinsaid calculations include at least one from the group consisting of; (a) determining the number of spikes among the digital samples; and (b) taking at least one statistic of the digital samples and comparing said at least one statistic with a corresponding at least one threshold. - View Dependent Claims (28)
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Specification