Device for managing piloting tasks carried out by a crew of an aircraft

• US 8,527,133 B2
• Filed: 12/14/2009
• Issued: 09/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thales SA
• Original Assignee: Thales SA
• Inventors: Guilley, Fabien, De Brito, Gabrielle, Francois, Gilles
• Primary Examiner(s): Black, Thomas
• Assistant Examiner(s): CASTRO, PAUL A
• Application Number:
  US12/636,873
• Publication Number:
  US 20100161157A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,359 Days
• Field of Search: 715/243, 701/3, 340/483
• US Class Current: 701/29.1
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0272 Presentation of monitored results, e.g. selection of status reports to be displayed; Filtering information to the user

Abstract

The present invention lies in the field of embedded flight management systems on board aircraft. The invention relates notably to a system for managing alerts and procedures, and more precisely to a device for managing piloting tasks carried out by a crew of an aircraft. The device for managing tasks (1) according to the invention comprises:

• • a module for managing alerts (4) generating alerts as a function of information originating from systems (2) of the aircraft, said module for managing alerts (4) being associated with a first display system (5) and with a first monitoring panel (7);
  • a module for managing tasks (8) creating a task on receipt of an alert requiring at least one action on the part of the crew, creating a task associated with a procedure, said module for managing tasks (8) being associated with a second display system (11) and with a second monitoring panel (14);
  • a module for managing a procedure (16) corresponding to a task selected by the crew, said module for managing a procedure (16) being associated with a third display system (17) and with a third monitoring panel (18).

Claims

1. A device for managing alerts and piloting tasks carried out by a crew of an aircraft, the device comprising:

an alert displaying module;

an alert monitoring panel configured for interactive management of displayed alerts by the crew;

a module for managing alerts configured to perform steps comprising;

generating alerts on receipt of information originating from a first system of the aircraft or on receipt of data if the received data is interpreted as an alert;

sorting the generated alerts according to a level of seriousness of each generated alert and generating a corresponding list of alerts;

managing the list of alerts by performing steps comprising;

displaying the list of alerts on the alert displaying module; and

deleting a first alert from the list of alerts when receiving a delete alert order originating from the alert monitoring panel or when a task corresponding to the first alert is deleted; and

transmitting the list of alerts to a module for managing tasks;

a task displaying module;

a task monitoring panel configured for interactive management by the crew of displayed tasks by selecting or deleting a displayed task or inserting a task;

the module for managing tasks configured to perform steps comprising;

creating a task;

on receipt of a second alert, the second alert being generated by the module for managing alerts and indicating a processing procedure to be carried out by the crew, the task being associated with the processing procedure, or

associated with an operational procedure, or

associated with a procedure selected by the crew via the task monitoring panel from among a set of operational procedures that is presented by a procedure displaying module, the set of operational procedures being stored in a first database, or

on receipt of actions to be carried out originating from an avionics systems;

transmitting a list of tasks to be displayed to the task displaying module;

deleting a first task when receiving an order to delete the first task by the crew via the task monitoring panel or when a corresponding alert is deleted; and

selecting a task to be transmitted to a module for managing procedures according to the task monitoring panel;

a procedure displaying module; and

a procedure monitoring panel configured for interactive management of displayed procedures by the crew by selecting a displayed action of a procedure;

wherein the module for managing procedures is configured to perform steps comprising;

searching in a database for a procedure to be displayed according to a selected task, the procedure to be displayed comprising a list of at least one action to be carried out; and

transmitting the procedure to be displayed to the procedure displaying module.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein operational procedures are transmitted to the module for managing tasks.

3. The device according to claim 1, wherein the module for managing procedures is further configured to perform steps comprising:

calculates calculating a state of progress of a first procedure as a function of acknowledgements of actions making up the first procedure, said first procedure comprising at least one action to be carried out;

transmitting the calculated state of progress to the module for managing tasks and to the module for displaying procedures; and

storing the state of progress in a second database.

4. The device according to claim 3, wherein the state of progress of the first procedure is initialized by the module for managing procedures on receipt of an initialization order originating from the module for managing tasks.

5. The device according to claim 3, wherein, on receipt of a state of progress indicating that all the actions of the first procedure have been carried out, the module for managing tasks deletes a task corresponding to the first procedure.

6. The device according to claim 3, wherein an acknowledgement of an action is transmitted to the module for managing procedures by:

a second system of the aircraft carrying out the action;

or

the module for monitoring procedures being actuated by the crew.

7. The device according to claim 3, wherein information relating to an action of the first procedure is displayed in response to the module for managing procedures receiving an order to display information relating to an action selected from among the actions displayed by the module for displaying procedures, the selected action being selected by the crew via the module for monitoring procedures.

8. The device according to claim 1, wherein the module for displaying alerts, the module for displaying tasks, and the module for displaying procedures utilize the same display device.

9. The device according to claim 1, wherein the module for monitoring alerts, the module for monitoring tasks, and the module for monitoring procedures are provided by a single monitoring device.