Functional monitor for flight management system

• US 8,838,293 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2006
• Issued: 09/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thales SA
• Original Assignee: Thales SA
• Inventors: Gutierrez-Castaneda, Manuel, Deker, Guy
• Primary Examiner(s): Amin, Bhavesh V
• Application Number:
  US11/642,659
• Publication Number:
  US 20070142981A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,826 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 701/3
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 23/00 Combined instruments indicating more than one navigational value, e.g. for aircraft; Combined measuring devices for measuring two or more variables of movement, e.g. distance, speed or acceleration
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0256 injecting test signals and analyzing monitored process response, e.g. injecting the test signal while interrupting the normal operation of the monitored system; superimposing the test signal onto a control signal during normal operation of the monitored system

Abstract

The invention relates to a flight management system for aircraft which makes it possible to carry out tests of the results of the calculations of the main functions for formulating the flight plans and trajectories of the aircraft making it possible to anticipate errors in this formulation, to present them to the crew as a function of criticality criteria, to store them so as to be communicated and processed by the maintenance teams.

Claims

1. A monitor for a flight management system of an aircraft, said monitor comprising:

at least a first module for recovering versions of data residing in memory of said flight management system in relation to flight plans and trajectories of said aircraft, and

a second module for performing at least one test of said data at an output of said first module,

wherein, said second module is configured such that, when one of said versions of the data residing in memory has changed in relation to a previous state, said at least one test is performed with respect to conditions of validity of said data to be satisfied for avoiding erroneous execution and/or abort of subsequent phases of said flight plans and trajectories, and allowing interruption of said execution if said at least one test is negative.

2. The monitor of claim 1, wherein said second module comprises a library of tests to be executed each in a given configuration of the aircraft and of environment.

3. The monitor of claim 1, further comprising a database including results breaching conditions at the output of said second module and of contexts of occurrence of said results.

4. The monitor of claim 3, further comprising a generator of messages of report of the results breaching conditions at the output of said second module.

5. The monitor of claim 4, wherein said generator is configured for parameterizing sortings and filterings at an output of the generator and at an input of an interface for presenting said messages to a crew.

6. The monitor of claim 4, further comprising elements for archiving said messages according to a download protocol.

7. The monitor of claim 4, further comprising elements for correlating the messages at an output of the generator with other messages originating from other devices for monitoring of the aircraft.

8. A method of monitoring a flight management system of an aircraft, said method comprising:

at least one step of recovering versions of data residing in memory of said flight management system in relation to flight plans and trajectories of said aircraft, and

a test and control step of performing at least one test of data at an output of said step of recovering when a version of said data residing in memory has changed in relation to a previous state, said test being performed with respect to conditions of validity of said data to be satisfied for avoiding erroneous execution and/or abort of subsequent phases of said flight plans and trajectories, and for allowing interruption of said execution if said at least one test is negative.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said test and control step is triggered when the conditions of validity of said data are satisfied, said conditions being verified in a cyclic manner at an input of the test and control step.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising a step of recording the results breaching conditions at the output of said test and control step and the contexts of occurrence of said results.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising a step of generating messages of report of the results breaching conditions at the output of said test and control step.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein said step of generating comprises parameterizing sortings and filterings at the output of said generating step and at the input of a step of presenting said messages to a crew.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising a step of archiving said messages according to a download protocol.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising a step of correlating the messages at the output of the generating step with other messages originating from other steps for monitoring of the aircraft.

15. A flight management system monitor for a flight management system of an aircraft, said monitor comprising:

at least one module for recovering versions of data residing in memory of said flight management system in relation to flight plans and trajectories of the aircraft, and

a test and control module for performing tests of data at an output of said at least one module, said tests being performed with respect to conditions of validity of the data residing in memory of said flight management system, wherein said tests are to be processed in relation to said conditions of validity recovered in advance of said processing, said conditions of validity having to be satisfied for avoiding erroneous execution and/or abort of subsequent phases of said flight plans and trajectories, and for allowing interruption of said execution if one of said tests is negative.