JP2001249172A - Vor/dme (very-high frequency omnidirectional radio beacon facility/distance measuring device) and vortac (strategic navigation system) antenna deterioration equipment diagnostic system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve problems that prediction of obstacle generation or a proper time of maintenance can not be determined, because the operation state of a VOR/DME antenna can not be confirm except quality at the inspection by a navigation safety wireless engineer to thereby unable to rearrange long-term deterioration tendency to form database, and that thereby satisfactory service can not be provided for a user, because operation of the facility is stopped periodically to execute a maintenance work. SOLUTION: A traveling wave and a reflected wave fed to the VOR/DME antenna are branched from an existing device, and accumulated in a personal computer as data expressed numerically by an A/D converter to form database. The long-term deterioration tendency can be monitored as a graph, and automatic prediction can be executed from past accumulated data, to thereby enable to execute equipment diagnosis of the whole antenna system continuously.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a VOR / DME
(Ultra high frequency omnidirectional radio beacon facility / distance measuring device) and VO
RTAC (strategic navigation system) is a system that diagnoses the deterioration of the aerial of the antenna over a long period of time.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art VOR / DME (ultra-high frequency omnidirectional radio beacon facility / distance measuring device) and VORTAC (strategic navigation system) facilities are aviation security facilities that notify a flying aircraft of the distance and direction from the facility. Conventionally, in order to maintain the reliability of the facility, the operation of the facility was periodically stopped, and the maintenance and inspection of the antenna was carried out by an aviation security radio engineer.

[0003] For this reason, the air route had to be changed during the suspension of the apparatus. The burden on the pilot is not only the complexity of entering data for changing flight routes for instrument flight,
The difference from the normal flight route led to increased stress.

[0004] Since the occurrence of a failure cannot be predicted in advance, over-maintenance is required to prevent the failure, resulting in an increase in cost.

[0005] Since failures of individual sideband antennas at an unmanned site could not be monitored remotely, it took time to grasp and recover the contents when the failure occurred, which hindered air traffic control operations.

[0006] A system for continuously monitoring the operating state of the antenna of VOR / DME (ultra-high frequency omnidirectional radio beacon facility / distance measuring device) and VORTAC (strategic navigation system) by a base station or the like has not been invented until now. .

[0007]

The problem to be solved is that, in the past, it was only possible to confirm the quality of equipment at the time of inspection by an aeronautical security radio technician, and to manage a long-term deterioration tendency in a database. As a result, it was not possible to predict the occurrence of a failure or determine an appropriate time for maintenance.

Since the long-term deterioration tendency of individual antennas cannot be monitored remotely, it takes time to grasp and recover the contents at the time of occurrence of a failure, which has hindered air traffic control operations.

[0009]

[MEANS FOR SOLVING THE PROBLEMS] VOR / DME and VO
A dedicated telephone line is laid between the RTAC site and the monitoring base station for transmitting a monitor reception signal and monitoring and controlling the device. The present invention uses a dedicated telephone line to transfer traveling wave and reflected wave data to a base station by file and remotely monitor the data.

[0010] The traveling wave and the reflected wave fed to the antennas at the VOR / DME and VORTAC sites are branched from the existing device, stored in a personal computer as data digitized by an A / D converter, and stored in a database.

The tendency of deterioration over a long period of time can be managed as a graph, and the entire antenna system can be monitored by analyzing the signal, automatically judging the quality of the equipment, and automatically predicting even the time of occurrence of a fault from past accumulated data. The equipment diagnosis is performed continuously.

When a value exceeding a preset upper and lower limit value is detected, an alarm is automatically issued to the base station, and remote monitoring of the unmanned service in real time becomes possible.

[0013]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS VOR / DME and VORTAC are aviation security facilities that notify a flying aircraft of the distance and direction from the facility, and have the same function, but are mainly VOR / DM.
E is used by commercial aircraft and VORTAC is used by military aircraft. FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of the facility diagnosis system using a VOR as an example. This device is composed of a site-side equipment diagnosis device and a base station-side remote monitoring device. The traveling wave and the reflected wave of the carrier antenna 3 and the sideband antenna group 4 are detected by the VSWR detector 5 from the antenna monitor panel 2 mounted on the existing VOR device 1, and the A of the data acquisition personal computer 8 is transmitted through the interface unit 6. / D converter 7.

The sideband antenna group is composed of 48 antennas and is electrically rotated counterclockwise at a frequency of 30 Hz. Therefore, the timing signal is branched from the distributor 9 in order to identify the order of the traveling wave and the reflected wave being measured to the antenna, added to the interface unit, and the measured antenna is identified by correlation. I have.

The data collection personal computer specifies the antennas of the carrier antenna and the sideband antennas and collects the data from the A / D converter. The sampling frequency in the A / D converter is operated at 1 KHz so that the peak value of the DC cell line can be reliably detected.

The time required for one rotation of the antenna is about 1/30
Since the measurement is performed in seconds, each antenna is measured for one line in one second, and sequentially stored in the memory, and simultaneously with the completion of the measurement, the file is recorded as data of all antennas of traveling waves and reflected waves. One measurement requires 98 seconds to measure each of 49 traveling waves and reflected waves, one carrier antenna and 48 sideband antennas. Therefore, the measurement cycle of all antennas is set to every two minutes. The measured data is stored in the ring buffer for 10 times and transferred by a request from the equipment diagnosis personal computer 10.

The equipment diagnosis personal computer takes in measured data from the data collecting personal computer, compares it with a preset reference value, and displays an alarm when data exceeding the set value is detected. Since the setting of the alarm value is set by a long-term evaluation from the past operation state of each antenna, it is possible to verify the transition of the past data and predict the future alarm issuance time.

The data measured by the personal computer for data collection stores the past 24 hours as it is, and separately stores its traveling wave and reflected wave. Therefore, the total number of data per day is 3
720 times in 0 times 24 hours. This data can accumulate data for a maximum of three years. The graph display includes a current day display (FIG. 3) capable of displaying VSWR data of each aerial for the past 24 hours, and a period designation display (FIG. 2) in which a display period is set and displayed in advance. The stored data is transferred to the monitoring personal computer in response to a request from the monitoring personal computer 14 (base station personal computer).

The personal computer for monitoring is installed in the base station and is linked to the personal computer for facility diagnosis via a dedicated telephone line via modems 12 and 13. The measured vibration data is transferred from the diagnostic personal computer, monitored and monitored by the latest measured data, and an alarm is displayed if the measured value exceeds the reference value. Graph display and reference value setting can be performed in the same manner as a computer for equipment diagnosis.

[0020]

According to the present invention, a standard VSWR value of 1.
When the reflected wave gradually increases from 2, if the appropriate maintenance work is performed only on the antenna at that time, the facility can be maintained without reaching the alarm level 4. Therefore, there is no need to perform an aerial point with a stoppage of operation, which can contribute to improving the service of aviation security operations.

Since the operation state of the antenna system at the VOR / DME site can be constantly monitored by the base station as shown in FIG. 3, it is possible to grasp the sudden failure occurrence 3 reaching the alarm level 2 and to specify the failed antenna in a short time. The service can be restored without stopping the operation of the facilities, which can contribute to the improvement of services.

The analysis of the period of the rise of the reflection level and the decrease of the traveling wave level of the collected data makes it possible to predict the occurrence of a failure, thereby optimizing the periodic maintenance and contributing to the improvement of the reliability of the VOR / DME system. .

Since an automatic monitoring system for 24 hours can be performed on the base station side, unmanned operation is easy and running cost can be greatly reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an equipment diagnosis system.

[Figure 2] Display example of the period designation display graph

[Figure 3] Display example of the display graph on the day

[Explanation of symbols]

 Fig. 1 1 VOR / DME device 2 Antenna monitoring device 3 Carrier antenna 4 Sideband antenna group 5 VSWR detector 6 Interface unit 7 A / D conversion board 8 Data acquisition personal computer 9 Distributor panel 10 Equipment diagnostic personal computer 11 Equipment diagnostic personal computer monitor 12 Dedicated line modem 13 Dedicated line modem 14 PC for monitoring 15 PC monitor for monitoring

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A traveling wave and a reflected wave emitted from a VOR / DME (ultra-high frequency omnidirectional radio beacon facility / distance measuring device) and a VORTAC (strategic navigation system) antenna are detected.
By storing the data quantified by the A / D converter in a personal computer and making it into a database, the long-term deterioration tendency can be managed as a graph, so that it is possible to predict the occurrence of a failure and determine the appropriate time for maintenance, and to determine the distance to the aircraft. And contributes to the improvement of reliability as an aviation security facility that provides azimuth information. 2. When a value larger or smaller than a preset value is detected, an alarm can be automatically issued to a base station, and remote monitoring of an unmanned site in real time becomes possible, contributing to a reduction in running cost. .