Wirelessly controllable electrical functional unit for an aircraft

• US 8,376,457 B2
• Filed: 03/25/2008
• Issued: 02/19/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/23/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lufthansa Technik AG (Deutsche Lufthansa AG)
• Original Assignee: Lufthansa Technik AG (Deutsche Lufthansa AG)
• Inventors: Muirhead, Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): MCPARTLIN, SARAH BURNHAM
• Application Number:
  US12/532,819
• Publication Number:
  US 20100060050A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,792 Days
• Field of Search: 297/217.1, 297/217.3, 244/188.6
• US Class Current: 297/217.3
• CPC Class Codes: B64D 11/0015 Arrangements for entertainment or communications, e.g. radio, television
• CPC Class Codes: B64D 11/00152 Seat back fixtures for removable monitors, e.g. tablet computers

Abstract

An aircraft includes interchangeable, wirelessly controllable electrical or electronic functional units provided for use by passengers and associated with a seat or group of seats. The aircraft further includes installation sites for the functional units, each installation site being associated with one seat or a group of seats. The functional units are removable such that they can be installed and uninstalled in the installation sites or replaced during maintenance work without forfeiting the operational approval of the aircraft. Each functional unit includes an RFID reader operating in a contactless manner to identify the installation site of the functional unit and a device for the wireless transmission of the identified installation site to a database of the aircraft. An RFID tag is associated with each installation site and contains information readable by the RFID reader to identify the associated seat or group of seats.

Claims

1. An aircraft, comprising:

a plurality of wirelessly controllable electrical or electronic functional units configured to be interchangeable with one another and for use by passengers, each being associated with a seat or group of seats; and

a plurality of installation locations for the plurality of functional units, each installation location being associated with a seat or group of seats, wherein;

the functional units are removable such that they can be installed and removed or replaced without cancellation of an operating clearance of the aircraft during maintenance,

each functional unit comprises (i) an RFID reader configured to operate in a non-contacting manner to identify an installation location of the functional unit and (ii) a device configured to wirelessly transmit the identified installation location for storage in a database in the aircraft, and

each installation location has an associated RFID tag encoding information which can be read by an RFID reader of a functional unit and which identifies the associated seat or group of seats.

2. The aircraft of claim 1, wherein the functional units are wirelessly controllable via a WLAN.

3. The aircraft of claim 1 or 2, wherein the functional units are cabin entertainment units.

4. The aircraft of claim 3, wherein the functional units are designed to output audio and/or video content.

5. The aircraft of claim 1, wherein the functional units each comprise a display.

6. The aircraft of claim 1, wherein the aircraft further comprises a database in which an electronic address of each functional unit is associated with a seat or group of seats.