The Boeing Company

Blue Road Research

Eric David Haugse

Angela Trego

Eric Udd

Ryon Christopher Warren

Charles H Hightower

Roy Ikegami

Robert Irving Ridgway

The present invention is a system and method for monitoring conditions of a vehicle and generating a maintenance plan according to the monitored conditions. The system includes one or more sensors and a data acquisition unit located within the vehicle. The one or more sensors generate signals of a condition from various locations within the vehicle. The data acquisition unit stores the generated sensor signals at a first sampling rate. The system also includes a structural condition management system that receives the stored sensor signals from the data acquisition unit. The structural condition management system is external to the vehicle. The structural condition management system processes the transmitted sensor signals based on one or more associated predefined condition assessment algorithms and generates a maintenance plan based on the processed sensor signals.

Vehicle condition monitoring system

A deformation compensation system for use with a large phased-array antenna system to electronically compensate for surface deformations occurring on the phased-array antenna which would otherwise compromise antenna performance. In one embodiment, a plurality of strain gauges are disposed on or integrally formed in structure forming the phased-array antenna. The strain gauges are placed at those locations on the antenna structure, where, through prior structural modeling and testing, it has been determined that high strains associated with the expected deformation of the phased-array antenna are expected to occur to a significant degree. The strain gauges output signals to a data acquisition system which uses a strain-to-displacement algorithm to produce displacements corresponding to the estimated, deformed shape of the phased-array antenna. These displacements are input to a beam steering controller which is used to generate phase shift or time delay commands used for electronically compensating, in real time, for the overall estimated, deformed shape of the phased-array antenna. The invention eliminates the need for heavy and large structural supports or trusses which have traditionally been required to maintain surface planarity of a large, phased-array antenna, and further enables the use of even larger phased-array antennas in space-based applications. The invention enables surface deformation to be compensated for in a non-intrusive manner which does not significantly increase the overall complexity of the phased-array antenna system.

Structural deformation compensation system for large phased-array antennas

A fiber grating corrosion sensor system which includes fiber grating corrosion and/or chemical sensors formed by writing one or more fiber gratings that are transverse load sensitive so that when corrosion occurs to a transverse stress applying sleeve there over, the transverse loading is relieved. The spectral signals from the fiber grating sensors change with variations in transverse strain providing a measurement of the degree of corrosion or change in chemical content.

Fiber optic grating corrosion and chemical sensor

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Normandy Park, WA, United States of America

Eric David Haugse