Flight data tracker

• US 9,718,557 B2
• Filed: 01/17/2014
• Issued: 08/01/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/17/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Research Foundation for The State University of New York (State University of New York)
• Original Assignee: The Research Foundation for The State University of New York (State University of New York)
• Inventors: Zubairi, Junaid Ahmed
• Primary Examiner(s): Black, Thomas G
• Assistant Examiner(s): LEWANDROSKI, SARA J
• Application Number:
  US14/158,176
• Publication Number:
  US 20150203212A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,292 Days
• Field of Search: 701 3, 701 14, 701 334
• 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: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0004 Transmission of traffic-related information to or from an aircraft airborne radio transmission systems in general H04B7/185; airborne wireless networks H04W84/06
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0013 with a ground station
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0082 for monitoring traffic from a ground station radar or analogous systems specially adapted for traffic control G01S13/91

Abstract

When flights meet disaster in the mid-air, the cause of the mishap is unknown immediately. Teams are dispatched in difficult conditions to retrieve the flight data recorder (FDR) also known as black box. Until the black box is found, the exact cause of the crash cannot be determined. Sometimes it may take years to find the black box. For example, Air France flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on Jun. 1, 2009. The cause of the accident remained unknown mainly because the black box was missing. It was found after almost two years in May 2011. The delay in finding the flight data creates risks for future flights if the crash occurred due to a manufacturing defect in the model of the plane. The ability to reach the data without the burden and need for a physical black box has obvious benefits. This idea has been discussed in the literature but no one has put forth a functional and effective method for the implementation of this concept, for example no one has determined an appropriate software scheme that would enable a universal system that doesn'"'"'t need a black box or which can function in parallel with black box. In this project, a set of algorithms for reliable transmission of flight data in real-time to distributed ground servers is developed. The attached description presents an overall structure of the proposed scheme. We also describe the methods of communicating between at least one plane server, several data servers and at least one central server controlling various components of data transmission, and the algorithms that enable the communication of data. In addition, the proposed packet header formats, the packet type codes and fault tolerance features are described.

Claims

1. A fault-tolerant method of transmitting, storing, retrieving and analyzing flight data, via a communications network connecting aircraft, data and control server modules, comprising the steps of:

sending to a control server an initial handshake packet from an aircraft server upon initialization at the origin of a flight, wherein the aircraft server is configured to run off of at least one central gateway node, to connect to a communications network and to transmit and receive packets over the communications network;

receiving one or more packets at the aircraft server;

determining by the aircraft server a packet type code and a source for each of the packets received at the aircraft server, and

if the packet type is an acknowledgement and route query packet sent from the control server, sending to the control server a route information packet, including one or more of a flight number, a date, an origin airport, a destination airport, a route path, an expected time of departure and a pre-calculated time of arrival, and

if the packet type is a data server identification packet sent from the control server, assigning a first data server on the list of data servers as a current data server for access by the aircraft server and sending a handshake control packet and flight data packets to the current data server, and

creating and recording flight data by an aircraft configured to create and record flight data;

receiving one or more packets at a data server, wherein the data server is configured to connect to a communications network and to transmit and receive packets over the communications network;

determining by the data server a packet type code and a source for each of the packets received at the data server, and

if the packet type is an initial handshake packet from the control server, establishing a data server soft state for access by the aircraft server during the approximate time window, and

if the packet type is an initial handshake packet from the aircraft server, sending an acknowledgement packet to the aircraft server, and

if the packet type is a data packet from the aircraft server, sending an acknowledgement packet to the aircraft server, processing the message, comparing a packet sequence number to a list of packet sequence numbers previously received by the data server, and

if the packet sequence number has already been received then discarding the packet, or

if the sequence number has not yet been received then saving the packet data in a data server buffer memory and sending the data packet to the control server and resending the data packet to the control server until an acknowledgement packet is received from the control server for the respective data packet; and

if the packet type is an end transmission packet, closing the connection with the aircraft server, sending any remaining data packets to the control server, and closing the connection with the control server once all corresponding control server acknowledgement packets have been received;

receiving one or more packets at the control server, wherein the control server is configured to connect to a communications network and to transmit and receive packets over the communications network;

determining by the control server a packet type code for each of the packets received at the control server, and

if the packet type is an initial handshake control packet sent from an aircraft server, sending an acknowledgement and route query packet to the aircraft server, and resending the action query until a route information packet is received from the aircraft server, and

if the packet type is a route information packet sent from the aircraft server, identifying one or more available data servers by

sending an initial handshake packet, including an approximate time window for access by the aircraft server, to the data servers,

selecting one or more data servers for access by the aircraft server based on one or more of specific flight routing considerations, and

sending a data server identification packet, including one or more of a list of the selected data servers, an identification number for each data server and a location for each data server, to the aircraft server, and

if the packet type is a data packet sent from a data server,

sending an acknowledgement packet to the data server,

extracting data from the packet,

comparing a packet sequence number to a list of packet sequence numbers previously received by the control server and if the packet sequence number has already been received then discarding the packet and if the sequence number has not yet been received then saving the data in an integrated data archive stored on a control server buffer memory, and

performing data mining on the dataset, retrieving data from the dataset, analyzing the data and determining a most likely cause of a disaster, accident or other mishap.

2. The method of claim 1, further configured to implement recovery from failure conditions, including without limitation timeouts and loss of connectivity, by execution of a server change algorithm, comprising the steps of:

assigning a first available data server as a current data server, by the aircraft server, and if there is no available data server

entering a panic mode,

sending a panic message to the control server,

attempting to connect with a next data server on the list of data servers via satellite, and

if the attempt to connect with the next data server via satellite fails, then attempting to connect with the data server following the next data server in sequential order on the list of data servers via satellite and repeating this process for all data servers included on the list of data servers until a connection is successfully made with one of the data servers,

periodically sending ping message packets to the current data server and to the next data server on the list of data servers from the aircraft server via radio link, and

if the packet type of a packet received at a data server is a ping message from the aircraft server, sending a ping receipt acknowledgement to the aircraft server, and

if the packet type of a packet received at the aircraft server is a ping receipt acknowledgement packet sent from the current data server, and the aircraft server does not also receive a ping receipt acknowledgement packet from a next data server, maintaining an assignment of the current data server, and

if the packet type of a packet received at the aircraft server is a ping receipt acknowledgement packet sent from the current data server, and the aircraft server also receives a ping receipt acknowledgement packet sent from the next data server,

calculating the round trip response times of the ping receipt acknowledgement packets for both the current data server and the next data server,

comparing the round trip response times of the ping receipt acknowledgement packets for the current data server and the next data server, and

if the response time for the current data server is less than the response time for the next data server then maintaining an assignment of the current data server, and

if the response time for the current data server is greater than the response time for the next data server,

sending an end transmission packet to the current data server,

reassigning the next data server as the new current data server,

reassigning the data server following the next data server on the data server list as the new next data server, and

sending flight data packets to the new current data server,

if the packet type of a packet received at the aircraft server is a ping receipt acknowledgement packet sent from the next data server, and the aircraft server does not also receives a ping receipt acknowledgement packet from the current data server,

sending an end transmission packet to the current data server via satellite,

reassigning the next data server as the new current data server,

reassigning the data server following the next data server on the data server list as the new next data server, and

sending flight data packets to the new current data server, and

repeating this process until the last data server on the data server list has been assigned as the current data server and receives an flight completion packet from the aircraft server.

3. A fault-tolerant system for distributed data transmission, storage, retrieval and analysis of aircraft flight data with aircraft, data and control server modules, comprising:

an aircraft configured to create and record flight data;

at least one aircraft server configured to run off of at least one central gateway node, to transmit and receive packets over a communications network and also to contact a control server upon initialization at the origin of a flight;

at least one data server configured to connect to the communications network and to receive and transmit packets over the communications network, wherein the at least one data server is a ground based server;

at least one control server configured to connect to the communications network and to receive and transmit packets over the communications network, wherein the at least one control server is a ground based server, is also configured to identify at least one data server available for communication with the aircraft server and is further configured to collect flight data from the data servers and to assemble and archive a flight data dataset, and wherein the flight data is provided by the aircraft server in flight data packets comprising a unique data packet header structure, wherein the at least one data server is configured to discard duplicate flight data packets based on the unique data packet header structure, and wherein the control server is configured to discard duplicate flight data packets based on the unique data packet header structure and assemble the flight data into a complete and non-redundant data set.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the aircraft is further configured to create and record flight data for at least a set of 88 parameters mandated to be recorded by the Federal Aviation Administration.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the aircraft server is further configured to transmit flight data packets at 1.8 Kbps of bandwidth.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein the control server is further configured to perform data mining on the dataset, retrieve data from the dataset, analyze the data retrieved and determine a most likely cause of a disaster, accident or other mishap.

7. The system of claim 3, wherein the aircraft server is configured to inform the control server of an aircraft origin airport, destination airport and route upon initialization at the origin of a flight and wherein the control server is further configured to identify the at least one data server available for communication with the aircraft server based on the aircraft origin airport, destination airport and route and also to provide a list of the available data servers with approximate times of data server availability to the aircraft server.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein one or more of the aircraft server and control server is further configured to pre-calculate a flight duration, time of aircraft entry into a data server zone, expected data volumes and estimated number of packets for a flight based on flight route, distance and expected arrival time.

9. The system of claim 3, wherein the unique data packet header structure contains a packet type code, a flight number, a departure date and a unique packet sequence number.

10. The system of claim 3, wherein the unique packet header structure is placed beneath a UDP header and reliability and fault tolerance mechanisms are implemented without use of TCP, thereby preventing large variations in rate of data transmission.

11. The system of claim 3, wherein the aircraft server is configured to connect to the communications network via one or more of a radio link and a satellite link.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein virtual data servers are used to distribute the data to the control server if the at least one central gateway node connects to the communications network via a satellite link.

13. The system of claim 3, wherein the system further includes an aircraft black box, and the unique packet header structure further includes a black box identification number.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the aircraft server is configured to run off of the black box and to connect to the communications network via one or more of a radio link and a satellite link.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein virtual data servers are used to distribute the data to the control server if the black box connects to the communications network via a satellite link.

16. The system of claim 3, wherein the control server is located at one of the origin airport and the destination airport.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the control server is also configured to identify and make available an array of distributed data servers on the ground located approximately 150-200 miles apart on the route.

18. The system of claim 3, wherein the data servers are configured to store backup of flight data for at least 12 to 24 hours.