Method for transmitting aircraft flight data

• US 9,313,276 B2
• Filed: 08/15/2012
• Issued: 04/12/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GE Aviation Systems LLC (General Electric Co. (Italy))
• Original Assignee: GE Aviation Systems LLC (General Electric Co. (Italy))
• Inventors: Pereira, Frazer Leslie
• Primary Examiner(s): LIAO, HSINCHUN
• Application Number:
  US13/585,973
• Publication Number:
  US 20130244588A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,336 Days
• Field of Search: 455/39, 455/422
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B64D 2045/0065 Black boxes, devices automatically broadcasting distress signals
• CPC Class Codes: B64D 2045/0085 Devices for aircraft health monitoring, e.g. monitoring flutter or vibration
• CPC Class Codes: B64D 45/00 Aircraft indicators or protectors not otherwise provided for camouflage F41H3/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18506 Communications with or from aircraft, i.e. aeronautical mobile service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

A method of transmitting aircraft flight data for an aircraft from the aircraft to a destination server via a wireless communication link with the method including determining an operational status of the aircraft, determining flight data to be transmitted, and transmitting the determined flight data to be transmitted to the destination server.

Claims

1. A method of transmitting aircraft flight data for an aircraft to a destination server via a wireless communication link, the method comprising:

determining an operational status of the aircraft, wherein the operational status includes a normal mode, an emergency mode, a critical mode, and a user-defined mode;

determining a set of flight data to be transmitted based at least in part on the determined operational status of the aircraft, wherein the set of flight data to be transmitted includes;

flight recorder data when it is determined the operational status of the aircraft is in the critical mode, at least one of fuel data or navigational data when it is determined the operational status of the aircraft is in the normal mode, at least one of fault data, electrical and power systems data, or propulsion data when it is determined the operational status of the aircraft is in the emergency mode;

assigning a priority value to at least one subset of the flight data based on a set of criteria;

assigning bandwidth to the at least one subset of the flight data based on the priority; and

transmitting the at least one subset of flight data over the wireless communication link to the destination server based on the priority value and the bandwidth.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of criteria includes at least one of a set of predetermined priority criteria, or a set of user defined criteria.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the flight data of the aircraft includes at least one of navigation data, fuel data, audio data, multimedia data, electrical and power systems data, or propulsion data.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the set of the flight data to be transmitted includes audio data when it is determined that the aircraft is in one of the emergency mode and the critical mode.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the set of the flight data to be transmitted further includes navigation data when it is determined that the aircraft is in the critical mode.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the set of the flight data to be transmitted further includes at least one of electrical and power systems data or propulsion data when it is determined that the aircraft is in the emergency mode.

7. The method of claim 3 wherein the set of the flight data to be transmitted includes fuel data when it is determined that the aircraft is in the normal mode.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining the operational status comprises monitoring at least one parameter of the aircraft indicative of the operational status.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one parameter may include a threshold value and an intensity value.

10. The method of claim 1, transmitting the at least one subset of flight data in an order based on priority values.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the destination server includes a designated ground station.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the at least one subset of flight data.

13. A method of transmitting aircraft flight data to a destination via a wireless communication link, comprising:

determining an operational state of an aircraft, wherein operational states include normal, emergency, and critical;

in response to determining the operational state, selecting, based at least in part on the operational state, a set of aircraft flight data to be transmitted, wherein the selecting the set of aircraft flight data to be transmitted includes;

selecting the set of flight data to include at least one of fuel data or navigational data in response to determining the operational state is normal;

selecting the set of flight data to include at least one of fault data, electrical and power systems data, or propulsion data in response to determining the operational state is emergency; and

selecting the set of flight data to include flight recorder data in response to determining the operational state is critical;

associating priority levels with flight data included in the set based at least in part on a set of criteria;

assigning bandwidth allocations to flight data included in the set based at least in part on a set of bandwidth criteria, the priority levels, and the operational state; and

transmitting flight data included in the set based at least in part on the priority levels and bandwidth allocations.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising selecting the set of flight data to include at least one of fault data, electrical and power systems data, or propulsion data, in response to determining the operational state is critical.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the flight recorder data includes at least one of audio data or multimedia data.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the determining the operational state of the aircraft includes:

determining that the aircraft has experienced a fault; and

in response to determining the aircraft has experienced a fault, at least one of comparing data related to the fault to at least one of a threshold or a tolerance, or determining an intensity value of the fault.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the transmitting flight data included in the set of flight data includes transmitting flight data having a greater priority level before transmitting flight data having a lesser priority level.