JPH0796897A - Flight-data recorder incorporating alarm function - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To allow a pilot to predict a trouble in an airframe or an engine in view of an output signal which is delivered from one of several sensors attached respectively to several parts of the aircraft, and which is adapted to be recorded in a flight-data recorder. CONSTITUTION:A detection signal from a sensor 1 which is adapted to be inputted to a control circuit 5 through a sensor interface circuit 4 so as to be stored in a memory 9 in a recording part 8, is made to branch off, and is delivered to a comparing circuit 6 which is adapted to transmit the signal a controller 11 provided in front of a pilot's seat through the intermediary of the control circuit 5, and accordingly, a king of a trouble and a degree of the same as a trouble are displayed on a display unit 12 in the controller 11 when the signal exceeds an associated one of preset warning values that are stored in a memory provided in a circuit, each for each sensor. Thereby it is possible to allow the pilot to predict occurrence of a trouble, and accordingly, to prevent occurrence of a serious accident.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is designed to automatically record various kinds of data relating to the state of a body or engine in flight when it is mounted on an aircraft or the like, and when an accident such as a crash occurs,
The present invention relates to a flight data recorder for obtaining data for investigating the cause.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An aircraft is equipped with a voice recorder for recording the voice of a pilot, a flight data recorder called a flight data recorder, and an automatic recorder for the state of the aircraft. The cause of the accident is elucidated by analyzing the airframe information recorded when the accident occurred. The flight data recorder is configured to record and record information obtained by various sensors attached to various parts of the aircraft in a storage medium. This storage medium (memory) is stored in a special encloser (container) that can retain the recorded contents even under severe environments such as vibration, shock, and high temperature in the event of an accident. In recent years, research has been carried out to utilize the information on the aircraft, which is recorded in the flight data recorder, taken in and out, and in-flight, for maintenance of the aircraft and on-board equipment, and some of them have reached the stage of practical application. Accumulation of various information such as fatigue of the aircraft obtained by the aircraft sensor for a long period of time, systematic processing, accumulation of past accidents, etc. are extremely useful for maintenance and maintenance of the aircraft and engine. In order to utilize the data recorded in the flight data recorder for maintenance of the aircraft and engine, the recorded data is read and stored every 2 to 8 hours for small aircraft and 3 to 25 hours for large aircraft. Build a database by analyzing aircraft information over a long period of time. By evaluating the condition of the aircraft and engine from this database, and performing preventive diagnosis and maintenance, the safety of the aircraft is further enhanced.

There is a physical constraint on the recording capacity of the recording medium of such a flight data recorder, and naturally there is also a constraint on the sampling interval of the recording data and the recording data type. Various machine data input from the machine sensors are supposed to display the operating status and failure information on each instrument and alarm indicator in the instrument panel. However, when trying to utilize the recorded data of the flight data recorder for airframe maintenance, the conventional sensor alone is not sufficient, and an airframe vibration sensor or the like has been newly added. The information of these additional sensors is recorded only on the recording medium of the flight data recorder without being displayed on the instrument panel that the pilot can constantly monitor, and is used as data for maintenance of the aircraft after the flight.

FIG. 7 shows a conventional flight data recorder 20.
3 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of FIG. In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a fuselage sensor, which is attached to each main portion of the fuselage as a dedicated sensor for detecting data such as an aircraft engine state, a steering state, and navigation information. About 100 sensors are installed per machine. Reference numeral 21 is a recorder control unit, which converts the detection signals from the many body sensors 1 into a predetermined format and performs control for writing to a magnetic tape of the recording unit 8 which is a recording medium or a semiconductor memory. Is. Reference numeral 8 is a recording unit, and a memory 9 such as a magnetic tape or a semiconductor memory is a special enclosure 10
It is housed in a (container) so that the internal recording medium can be protected even if the aircraft is hit by a strong impact, pressure, fire, etc. due to an explosion, flame, or collision due to an accident. Therefore, the encloser 10 is made of a special metal case. 4 in the recorder control unit 21 is a sensor interface circuit, which is a circuit for inputting information from the various sensors 1. Reference numeral 22 denotes a control circuit, which is a circuit for performing format conversion of data input from the sensor interface circuit 4 and outputting information to be recorded and accumulated to the recorder drive circuit 7. Reference numeral 7 is a recorder drive circuit, which is a drive circuit for a recording signal and a recording control signal for writing the data input from the control circuit 22 into the memory 9 of the recording unit 8. Reference numeral 23 is a controller for controlling and monitoring the operating state of the flight data recorder 20.

[0005]

As described above, the conventional flight data recorder records information on a large number of sensors attached to the aircraft, some of which are displayed on the instrument panel. The detection data from the newly added vibration sensor is only recorded in the flight data recorder. However, even if it is not necessary to constantly display the airframe sensor information during flight, if a warning signal can be sent immediately to the pilot and a warning can be issued immediately when the normal value is temporarily exceeded, a flight plan You will be given the opportunity to reconsider and prevent accidents from occurring. In other words, if an abnormal value in the airframe sensor information is detected before the extreme danger signal is issued and the pilot and crew can be informed of the danger as soon as possible, it will not respond to the operation of the airframe after the abnormality accurately and will not lead to a major accident. You can Although such an abnormal value notification means is strongly desired by the crew, it is the current situation that it has not been put to practical use. As mentioned above, even if you want to add a display for the output information of the newly added airframe sensor such as a vibration sensor, the instrument panel in the cockpit is already full of the current instruments, and the physical space I can't afford it. Further, it is practically impossible to completely change the layout (arrangement) of the instrument panel and add a new instrument because a large amount of cost is required.

An object of the present invention is to provide a flight with an alarm function capable of giving advance notice to the pilot of a deviation from the normal value range of the airframe or engine by utilizing the information of the airframe sensor which was not utilized during the conventional flight. It is to provide a data recorder.

[0007]

A flight data recorder with an alarm function according to the present invention has a sensor interface circuit for taking in detection signals of a large number of sensors attached to various parts of an aircraft body, and an output of the sensor interface circuit. In a flight data recorder provided with a control circuit for converting into a data format of and writing to a memory of a recording unit via a recorder drive circuit, detection signals of the plurality of sensors obtained from the control circuit are input, and the number of the plurality of sensors is input. The control circuit is provided with a comparison circuit that gives the judgment information of the item and the excess value when the preset warning value is exceeded for each sensor, and the control circuit outputs the judgment information from the comparison circuit to the outside. It is characterized by being configured as described above.

[0008]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the sensor 1, the sensor interface circuit 4, the recorder drive circuit 7, and the memory 9 and the container 10 of the recording unit 8 are the same as those in the conventional portion of FIG. Reference numeral 6 is a comparison circuit, which is a main part of the present invention. 12 is a controller,
An indicator 13 arranged in the cockpit and a buzzer or the like are included as necessary. A control circuit 5 controls the operation of the recorder control unit 3 of the flight data recorder 2 of the present invention. The comparison circuit 6 is a ROM (read-only memory) that stores preset parameters for each of a large number of sensors, and an R for primary storage of data input from the control circuit 5.
An AM (random access memory), a microprocessor (MPU) for comparing and determining the parameters stored in the ROM and the data in the RAM are provided. The control circuit 5 is
It has the same function as the conventional one and outputs the input data from the sensor interface circuit 4 to the comparison circuit 6 as well. Further, when the comparison circuit 6 detects an abnormality, the external controller 11 creates and outputs a data format of the abnormality item and the abnormality content to be displayed on the display 12.

FIGS. 3, 4 and 5 are characteristic diagrams for explaining the operation of the present invention. FIG. 3 shows an example of detecting whether the engine speed exceeds an upper limit value or a lower limit value that should be detected as a warning sign. An upper limit and a lower limit are set for each input parameter from the machine body sensor, and when a sensor signal exceeding this is input, it is detected as an abnormality. As shown in this example, the engine speed and the like are protected so as to be compared and detected after the engine speed reaches a specified value, in order not to detect abnormalities below the lower limit when the engine is started.
These operations are comprehensively determined with other sensor information by software such as MPU constituting the comparison circuit. Therefore, the abnormality detection algorithm first defines a condition based on a plurality of sensor information for each sensor. These conditions are given by previously writing the defining method for each sensor in the ROM of the comparison circuit. FIG. 4 shows the case where the rate of change in engine speed θ ₀ , θ ₁ , θ ₂ ... Is monitored, and when the magnitude of the amount of change for each sample is detected and a change exceeding the specified value is detected, an abnormal condition is detected. This is an example.
These detection methods are also protected so that there is no erroneous determination at the time of starting similar to the above. FIG. 5 shows the case where the exhaust temperature of the engine is monitored. When the upper limit value is exceeded, an abnormal announcement is given, and when this state continues for a long time, the duration and the cumulative area of values that exceed the upper limit value. This is an example for notifying the damage of the engine by and notifying further abnormal condition. In this way, by continuing the alarms due to the detection of individual abnormalities of the respective sensors and these states, it is possible to give a stronger warning as a notice to a serious accident. In the present invention, the abnormal state of the airframe sensor signal is detected,
By giving advance notice of the occurrence of an accident, a means for preventing the occurrence of a serious accident is given, and the content of the preventive warning differs depending on the sensor used, but it is easy to add the comparison circuit 6 of the present invention. It was realized in. By using the example as shown in FIG. 5, the warning content can also be announced by identifying the warning content according to the urgency of the abnormal content, such as the first stage and the second stage.

FIG. 2A shows an embodiment of the comparison circuit 6 which constitutes the essential part of the present invention. This circuit is added to the recorder control unit 3 and receives sample data from the control circuit 5 to detect event information. Reference numeral 61 is a microprocessor (MPU) which is a constituent element of the comparison circuit, and realizes data comparison by software. As the operation content, the sample information of the machine body sensor input from the control circuit 5 of the recorder control unit 3 via the data bus is stored in the data RAM 62 for temporary storage. An event detection method is individually defined for each sample data. The contents of this regulation are written in the data ROM 63, and the MP
In U61, the abnormality detection method and the determination reference value are read from the data ROM 63 for each data type, and the presence or absence of abnormality is determined by comparison with this. However, as the determination method, there is also a method of calculating the change from the past data as shown in FIGS. 3 to 5, and the data RAM 62 has a data memory space in which the accumulated data length is determined for each sensor. It is prepared. As a specific example, the case of FIG. 3 will be described. When inputting the number of rotations, a control number is given to each sensor information by the control circuit 5, and together with this control number, the MPU 61 is passed through the interface circuit (I / O) 64.
Entered in. The information of this rotation speed is stored in the data RAM 62.
Is temporarily stored in the corresponding RAM area. Furthermore, MPU6
1 inputs the abnormality detection method and the judgment value of the corresponding management number from the data ROM 63. In this case, it is instructed to compare with the upper limit value and the lower limit value, and the condition values Dmax and Dmin, which are the criteria for this, are read from the ROM table and compared with the numerical data of the rotational speed that has just been input and temporarily stored. To do. Input data is Din, upper limit is Dmax, lower limit is Dmi
If n, and if Dmin ≤ Din ≥ Dmax,
The rotation speed is judged to be a normal value. Abnormality exceeding the upper limit is Dma
If an abnormality is detected under the condition of x <Din and less than the lower limit value, D
It is detected under the condition of min> Din. The result is I / O
It is output to the control circuit 5 via 64.

Other detection methods are calculated by the same method, but when long-term data calculation is required, a memory for that is prepared. Reference numeral 65 is a clock generator for operating the MPU 61. 66 is the MPU
It is a ROM for storing a program for operating 61, and the same device as the data ROM 63 can be used. This program defines a data input method, a comparison method, and a comparison result output method from the control circuit 5 of the recorder control unit 3. That is, the data RO
M63 includes a detection method for each comparison data (for example, in FIG.
Index information regarding which method of FIG. 5 is to be performed) and its determination reference value are stored. These data are
ROM data can be easily read by making a management number, which is tabulated and generally given by the control circuit 5, have a series of correlations with the ROM address. Figure 2
(B) is a reference example of the data table of the data ROM 63. The management number of the sensor information is determined in advance, and comparison data is stored for each ROM data length n for each sensor information. As an example, in the sensor with the management number 15,
The comparison method and comparison data are read from the address of DD ₀ + (15 × n). Data RAM for temporary storage of sensor information
As for the memory capacity of 62, how much memory capacity is required from past data is determined by the abnormality detection method. The I / O 64 is an interface circuit with the data bus from the control circuit of the recorder control unit, and is used for timing matching of data input and output.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an application example of the present invention, in which 13 is an integrated display and 14 is a data bus. In recent years, airframe-mounted devices have been public data buses (for example, M
IL-STD-1553B multiple data bus, etc.). In such a system, as shown in FIG. 6, part of the machine body information is input from the data bus and the abnormality detection result can be displayed on the display part of the integrated controller. According to this, a large number of display characters can be used, and more accurate abnormal contents can be expressed. In either method, there is a difference in the display method of the abnormal content,
An accident prevention function can be achieved by detecting abnormality when inputting airframe sensor information, which is the main object of the present invention, and notifying a pilot in flight of the risk of accident occurrence.

[0013]

As described in detail above, the following effects can be obtained by implementing the present invention. Every time the airframe sensor signal is input, the abnormality detection is performed by comparing it with the preset abnormality value detection parameter, and the abnormal state which may be the direct cause of the accident is notified to the pilot in flight, and thereafter. With the help of the flight and accident avoidance method, it can greatly contribute to prevent serious accidents from occurring. According to the analysis of the cause of the accident,
Since the flight continued after overlooking the first small abnormality, there were many cases in which the occurrence of further problems later and the serious accident eventually occurred. The various sensors mounted for the flight data recorder can detect the cause of the accident by being able to detect these initial abnormalities, and the sensor type and the mounted sensor are thus determined. Therefore, the present invention is capable of quickly detecting abnormal values and responding to these abnormalities during flight, which is extremely useful for accident prevention.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a partial detailed view of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of an operation of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of the operation of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory view of the operation of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an application example of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a conventional flight data recorder.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 sensor 2 flight data recorder 3 recorder control unit 4 sensor interface circuit 5 control circuit 6 data comparison circuit 7 recorder drive circuit 8 recording unit 9 memory 10 container 11 controller 12 indicator 13 general indicator 14 data bus 20 flight data recorder 21 Recorder control unit 22 Control circuit 23 Controller 61 MPU 62 Data RAM 63 Data ROM 64 I / O 65 Clock generator 66 ROM

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A sensor interface circuit for taking in detection signals of a large number of sensors attached to various parts of an aircraft body, and an output of the sensor interface circuit converted into a predetermined data format for recording via a recorder drive circuit. In a flight data recorder provided with a control circuit for writing in the memory of, when the detection signals of the large number of sensors obtained from the control circuit are input, and a value exceeding a preset warning value for each of the large number of sensors is exceeded. A flight data recorder with an alarm function, characterized in that the control circuit is provided with a comparison circuit for giving the judgment information of the item and the excess value, and the control circuit is configured to output the judgment information from the comparison circuit to the outside. .