Area health managers for aircraft systems

• US 8,175,768 B2
• Filed: 06/21/2007
• Issued: 05/08/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: Bishop, Douglas L., Felke, Timothy J., Hynek, Pavel P H
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, John
• Assistant Examiner(s): Broadhead, Brian J
• Application Number:
  US11/766,489
• Publication Number:
  US 20080319603A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,783 Days
• Field of Search: 701/3, 701/29, 701/35, 701/79, 700/79, 700/23, 714/27
• US Class Current: 701/30.8
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0213 Modular or universal configuration of the monitoring system, e.g. monitoring system having modules that may be combined to build monitoring program; monitoring system that can be applied to legacy systems; adaptable monitoring system; using different communication protocols
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0278 Qualitative, e.g. if-then rules; Fuzzy logic; Lookup tables; Symptomatic search; FMEA

Abstract

An aircraft system includes an aircraft subsystem generating monitor trips related to the health of the aircraft subsystem; and an area health manager coupled to the aircraft subsystem. The area health manager includes a data receiver for receiving the monitor trips from the aircraft subsystem; a fault detector for processing inputs based on the monitor trips to identify faults; and an execution sequence queue coupled to the fault detector for storing a plurality of execution entities. Each of the plurality of execution entities is associated with a specific logic operation in the fault detector that is executed when the associated execution entity is in a first predetermined state.

Claims

1. An aircraft system, comprising:

an aircraft subsystem generating monitor trips related to the health of the aircraft subsystem; and

an area health manager coupled to the aircraft subsystem, the area health manager comprising;

a data receiver for receiving the monitor trips from the aircraft subsystem;

a fault detector for processing inputs based on the monitor trips to identify faults, the fault detector configured to store logic operations; and

an execution sequence queue coupled to the fault detector for storing a plurality of execution entities, each of the plurality of execution entities being associated with a specific logic operation in the fault detector that is executed when the associated execution entity is in a first predetermined state based at least in part on the monitor trips.

2. The aircraft system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the logic operations includes an isolation table.

3. The aircraft system of claim 2, wherein the logic operations include a latches table and a delay table.

4. The aircraft system of claim 3, further comprising an isolation table processor coupled to the execution sequence queue for executing the respective isolation table when the associated execution entity is in the first predetermined state, a latches table processor coupled to the execution sequence queue for executing the respective latches table when the associated execution entity is in the first predetermined state, and a delay table processor coupled to the execution sequence queue for executing the respective delay table when the associated execution entity is in the first predetermined state.

5. The aircraft system of claim 1, further comprising a variables table coupled to the fault detector for providing the inputs to the specific logic operations,

the data receiver including a ping pong buffer that determines monitor trips that have changed relative to an immediately preceding cycle, the data receiver providing only the changed monitor trips to the variables table.

6. The aircraft system of claim 5, wherein the variables tables associates the changed monitor trips with the specific logic operations.

7. The aircraft system of claim 6, wherein the changed monitor trips result in the execution entities associated with the specific logic operations being in the first predetermined state.

8. The aircraft system of claim 1, further comprising an execution sequence processor coupled to the execution sequence queue for evaluating the predetermined state of each of the plurality of execution entities of the execution sequence.

9. The aircraft system of claim 8, wherein the execution sequence processor, after evaluating one of the execution entities, changes the one execution entity to a second state.

10. The aircraft system of claim 8, wherein the evaluation by the execution sequence processor of a first execution entity triggers the execution sequence processor to change a second execution entity from a second state to the first state.

11. The aircraft system of claim 1, further comprising a central maintenance computer coupled to the area health manager, the specific logic operations producing fault reports provided to the central maintenance computer.

12. The aircraft system of claim 1, wherein the fault detector and the execution sequence queue form a fault processing module.

13. The aircraft system of claim 1, wherein the data receiver is a data collection and initiated test module.

14. An area health manager, the area health manager comprising:

a data receiver for receiving monitor trips from an aircraft subsystem;

a fault detector for processing inputs based on the monitor trips to identify faults, the fault detector configured to store logic operations; and

an execution sequence queue coupled to the fault detector for storing a plurality of execution entities, each of the plurality of execution entities being associated with a specific logic operation in the fault detector that is executed when the associated execution entity is in a first predetermined state based at least in part on the monitor trips.

15. The area health manager of claim 14, wherein at least one of the logic operations includes an isolation table.

16. The area health manager of claim 15, wherein the logic operations include a latches table and a delay table.

17. The area health manager of claim 16, further comprising an isolation table processor coupled to the execution sequence queue for executing the respective isolation table when the associated execution entity is in the first predetermined state, a latches table processor coupled to the execution sequence queue for executing the respective latches table when the associated execution entity is in the first predetermined state, and a delay table processor coupled to the execution sequence queue for executing the respective delay table when the associated execution entity is in the first predetermined state.

18. The area health manager of claim 14, further comprising a variables table coupled to the fault detector for providing the inputs to the specific logic operations,

the data receiver including a ping pong buffer that determines monitor trips that have changed relative to an immediately preceding cycle, the data receiver providing only the changed monitor trips to the variables table.

19. The area health manager of claim 18, wherein the variables tables associates the changed monitor trips with the specific logic operations.

20. A data processing unit, comprising:

a data receiver configured to receive monitor trips from an aircraft subsystem;

a data processing module coupled to the data receiver and configured to process inputs based on the monitor trips and to store logic operations; and

an execution sequence queue coupled to the data processing module for storing a plurality of execution entities, each of the plurality of execution entities being associated with a specific logic operation in the data processing module that is executed when the associated execution entity is in a first predetermined state based at least in part on the monitor trips.