Aircraft safety and configuration monitoring system and method

• US 9,162,776 B2
• Filed: 08/18/2010
• Issued: 10/20/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Shore, Rebecca, Kopecki, Steve, Li, Winfeng, Coop, William P., Hoang, Thanh D., Yourkowski, Swanee, Ung, Kevin Yong, Zheng, Yucheng, Avery, Robert Lee, Kettering, Christopher B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bugg, George
• Assistant Examiner(s): Afrifa-Kyei, Anthony D
• Application Number:
  US12/858,572
• Publication Number:
  US 20120044092A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,889 Days
• Field of Search: 340/945
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B64D 2045/0085 Devices for aircraft health monitoring, e.g. monitoring flutter or vibration
• CPC Class Codes: B64F 5/00 Designing, manufacturing, assembling, cleaning, maintaining or repairing aircraft, not otherwise provided for; Handling, transporting, testing or inspecting aircraft components, not otherwise provided for
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/006 Indicating maintenance

Abstract

An aircraft safety and configuration monitoring system includes a plurality of RFID equipped items, a plurality of RFID interrogators communicating with the plurality of RFID equipped items, a processor communicating with the plurality of RFID interrogators and adapted to determine an issue with respect to any of the plurality of RFID equipped items and an indicating mechanism communicating with the processor and adapted to indicate the issue.

Claims

1. An aircraft configuration monitoring system, comprising:

a plurality of RFID equipped items in a pressurized cabin of an aircraft selected from among oxygen generators, placards, flight deck library checklists, and combinations thereof;

a plurality of RFID interrogators configured to communicate with said plurality of RFID equipped items and integrated into the system by affixing to the aircraft in the pressurized cabin;

a processor separated from the plurality of RFID equipped items and separated from but configured to communicate with said plurality of RFID interrogators and configured to determine an issue with respect to any of said plurality of RFID equipped items;

an indicating mechanism configured to communicate with said processor and configured to indicate said issue; and

an airline maintenance operation control system configured to communicate with said indicating mechanism and to initiate service, repair, replacement, and/or maintenance of the RFID equipped items to maintain safe configuration of the oxygen generators, placards, flight deck library checklists, and combinations thereof.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein said indicating mechanism comprises a flight crew technical electronic logbook of the aircraft.

3. An aircraft configuration monitoring system, comprising:

an aircraft;

a plurality of RFID equipped items that are components of systems affixed to said aircraft, the RFID equipped items being selected from among oxygen generators, placards, flight deck library checklists, and combinations thereof;

a plurality of RFID interrogators communicating with said plurality of RFID equipped items;

a processor separated from the plurality of RFID equipped items and separated from but configured to communicate with said plurality of RFID interrogators and configured to determine an issue with respect to any of said plurality of RFID equipped items, the issue including service, repair, replacement, and/or maintenance of said plurality of RFID equipped items; and

an indicating mechanism configured to communicate with said processor and adapted to indicate said issue to monitor safe configuration of the plurality of RFID equipped items selected from oxygen generators, placards, flight deck library checklists, and combinations thereof, in the systems affixed to said aircraft.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein said plurality of RFID equipped items comprises a plurality of RFID equipped oxygen generators.

5. The system of claim 3 wherein said plurality of RFID equipped items comprises a plurality of RFID equipped placards.

6. The system of claim 3 wherein said plurality of RFID equipped items further comprises a plurality of RFID equipped security seals.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the RFID equipped items further comprise security seals selected from the group consisting of door seals, smoke detector seals, and security seals on panels.

8. The system of claim 3 wherein said plurality of RFID equipped items comprises a flight deck library checklist.

9. The system of claim 3 further comprising a flight deck configured to communicate with said processor and wherein said indicating mechanism comprises a flight crew technical electronic logbook of said aircraft configured to communicate with said flight deck and the interrogators are integrated into the systems by affixing to the aircraft.

10. The system of claim 9 further comprising an airline maintenance operation control system configured to communicate with said flight deck, to receive a report of the issue from the flight deck, and to initiate the service, repair, replacement, and/or maintenance.

11. The system of claim 3 wherein the plurality of RFID equipped items are in a pressurized cabin of the aircraft.

12. An aircraft configuration monitoring method, comprising:

using a plurality of items to be monitored as components of systems affixed to an aircraft, the plurality of items selected from among oxygen generators, placards, flight deck library checklists, and combinations thereof;

using a plurality of RFID tags on said plurality of items, respectively;

monitoring said plurality of RFID tags for one or more issues involving said plurality of items, the issues including service, repair, replacement, and/or maintenance of said plurality of items to maintain safe configuration of the plurality items selected from oxygen generators, placards, flight deck library checklists, and combinations thereof, in the systems affixed to the aircraft; and

reporting an occurrence of the one or more issues.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein said plurality of items further includes at least one item selected from among security seals, life vests, emergency equipment, and combinations thereof.

14. The method of claim 12 wherein said reporting comprises reporting to an airline maintenance operation control system.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising correcting the one or more issues.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the method further comprises the airline maintenance operation control system initiating the service, repair, replacement, and/or maintenance.

17. The method claim 12 wherein the plurality of items are in a pressurized cabin of the aircraft.

18. The method claim 12 wherein the monitoring comprises monitoring a configuration of the systems on the aircraft by interrogating the plurality of RFID tags.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the monitoring further comprises using interrogators integrated into the systems by affixing to the aircraft.

20. The method of claim 18 further comprising detecting an event using the interrogating, correlating the event against an aircraft configuration management database, and determining the occurrence of the issue as an inconsistency with the configuration in the database.