Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation

Lear Corporation

Mark W Davis

James P Cycon

Alan Matthew Finn

Zaffir A Chaudhry

Andrew M Brookhart

Joshua David Isom

Derek H Geiger

Alexander I Khibnik

David Lee Kasper

Payman Sadegh

Avinash Sarlashkar, Jr

Preston R Bates

Jeremy Sheldon

Mark R Jaworowski

James Jason Dattolo

William Arthur Welsh

Erez Eller

Jonathan K Garhart

Jun Ma

Christopher A Thornberg

Ole Wulff

Stephen T Kubik

Michael Maass

Philip LeMay

Ronald K Reich

Christopher L Winslow

Mauro Jorge Atalla

John H Judge

Marcus D Cappelli

James N Rozak

Stephen James Learman

Saligrama R Venkatesh

Gregory J Kacprzynski

Michael G Mastrianni

Andreas P F Bernhard

Anindya Ghoshal

Andreas Bernhard

Brian Edward Morris

Isaac Bandy

Peter F Horbury

Jeffrey Steele

Matthew James Watson

Raymond Joseph Beale

Nicholos A Mackos

Biqing Wu

Jeffrey R Schaff

Roxana Zangor

James Peter Cycon

Derek Geiger

Alexander Khibnik

Mauro Jorgre Atalla

A computer-implemented method and system for controlling an aircraft based on detecting and mitigating fatiguing conditions and aircraft damage conditions is disclosed. According to one example, a computer-implemented method includes detecting, by a processing system, a health condition of a component of the aircraft. The method further includes determining, by the processing system, whether the health condition is one of a fatigue condition or a damage condition. The method further includes implementing, by the processing system, a first action based at least in part on determining that the health condition is a fatigue condition to mitigate the fatigue condition. The method further includes implementing, by the processing system, a second action based at least in part on determining that the health condition is a damage condition to mitigate the damage condition.

Controlling an aircraft based on detecting and mitigating fatiguing conditions and aircraft damage conditions

A method of assessing airframe corrosion risk includes determining a component corrosion stress based on data from at least one of a corrosivity sensor, an aircraft exposure history, a climate database, or an aircraft configuration. The method includes generating a component corrosion risk based on the determined component corrosion stress. An accumulated component corrosion risk is calculated based on the component corrosion risk and a historical component corrosion risk. An airframe corrosion risk is determined based on the accumulated component corrosion risk.

Systems and methods to assess corrosion risk

Virtual sensors can be used to monitor the loads on the system in determining damage accumulation, remaining useful life or retirement time of the components. A virtual sensor is a mathematical construct to infer a desired system measurement (e.g. a structural load) from readily available system state parameters (e.g. speed, weight, load factors, control settings, etc.). The accuracy of the virtual sensor depends upon the mapping between the desired measurement and the state parameters. A hybrid load monitoring system and method includes one or more direct or physical sensor measurements in addition to the plurality of virtual sensors. Signals from the physical sensors are included as an input (as opposed to an output) to the mapping between system state parameters and the various target sensor feature amplitudes.

Hybrid virtual load monitoring system and method

A system, method, and computer program for detecting and isolating structural faults is provided. To detect and isolate structural faults, a plurality of sensed features that corresponds to sensor data from the monitoring sub-system and a plurality of estimated features that corresponds to the plurality of sensed features can be generated. Further, the plurality of sensed features and the plurality of estimated features can be compared to produce a plurality of residuals. From the plurality of residuals, at least one structural fault within the vehicle are determined and isolated for further use of maintenance decision support.

Rotorcraft structural fault-detection and isolation using virtual monitoring of loads

A measuring system and method that computes and analyzes sensor data fused with multiple mechanical and thermally induced strain measurements is provided. Further, the measuring system and method realizes physics-based relations between sensor readings due to mechanical and thermal sources by optimally de-coupling a total strain into its mechanical and thermal components. The measuring system and method also auto-tunes coefficients involved in the optimal de-coupling equations using sensor specification data and previous system test results for initialization.

Fiber optic weight sensor optimization for landing gear

A system and method for receiving a plurality of first inputs from a transducer, where the plurality of first inputs correspond to vibrations of a rotational machine, and filtering the plurality of first inputs to derive a frequency of interest. The system and method then generates a sinusoidal signal at the frequency of interest and a pulse train of one or multiple pulses per revolution at the frequency of interest from the sinusoidal signal. The system and method further identifies a first pulse at a zero crossing within the pulse train and counts zero crossings to define blocks of data for use in time synchronous averaging calculations.

Virtual tachometers based on time series filtering

A method of health management of a monitored system includes collecting component condition indicator data used to calculate a plurality of component health indicators. Component fault severity and potential failure modes are determined utilizing the component condition indicator data. The potential failure modes are ranked in order of likelihood to isolate the failure mode. A system of health management for monitored apparatus includes a fault severity module to derive a plurality of component health indicators from collected component condition indicator data, the plurality of component health indicators indicative of fault severity of a plurality of components. A fault isolation module separately derives a ranked listing of potential fault/failure modes utilizing the component condition indicator data. The system further includes a communication portion to which the plurality of component health indicators and the ranked listing of fault/failure modes are transmitted for review and/or action by cognizant personnel.

System and method for improved health management and maintenance decision support

A system and method for an application of a virtual load monitoring of an aircraft to determine a component retirement time for at least one component of the aircraft is provided. The system and method includes estimating component loads from aircraft state parameters; calculating load statistics from the component loads; calculating a reliability factor; generating a component design load spectrum by applying the reliability factor to the load statistics; and calculating the component retirement time for the at least one component of the aircraft by utilizing the component design load spectrum.

Application of virtual monitoring of loads

A method of health monitoring and assessment of an aircraft structure includes collecting data from a plurality of sensors located at one or more components of the aircraft. The sensors assess a physical condition of the components and are arrayed in one or more aircraft zones. The data is communicated to a health assessment module, which calculates one or more component structural condition indicators of each component. The component structural condition indicators are compiled and one or more component structural health indicators are calculated. The component structural health indicators are compiled by aircraft zone and a zone structural health indicator is calculated based on the component structural health indicators of components residing in the particular aircraft zone. An aircraft level health indicator is calculated based on the zone structural health indicators and one or more maintenance actions are recommended based on the structural condition and health indicators.

System and method for health assessment of aircraft structure

A method of drive system diagnostics of an aircraft includes capturing high load drivetrain component vibration data at select steady-state and/or high-load transient operating conditions of the aircraft and processing the captured vibration data to improve reliability and/or accuracy of captured vibration data. The processed vibration data is utilized to provide a health assessment of the drivetrain components and achieve earlier detection of incipient faults. A health monitoring system for drivetrain components of an aircraft includes a plurality of vibration sensors positioned at drivetrain components of an aircraft to capture drivetrain component vibration data at transient operating conditions of the aircraft. One or more processing modules process the captured vibration data to improve reliability and/or accuracy of the captured data, and a fault reasoning module calculates a health indicator of the drivetrain components.

System and method for improved drive system diagnostics

A fiber-optic sensor system includes a structure having a fiber-optic cable operatively connected thereto. The system includes a network controller with an interrogator operatively connected to the fiber-optic cable to receive optical energy indicative of a characteristic of the structure therefrom and convert optical energy to electrical energy and electrical energy to optical energy for data communication. A sensor and/or a data source are operatively connected to the fiber-optic cable through the network controller to transmit data through the fiber-optic cable and receive data therefrom.

Systems and methods for integrated, multi-functional, fault tolerant sensing and communication

Embodiments are directed to obtaining data based on samples of a vibration signal, processing, by at least one processor, the data to obtain a qualitative and quantitative assessment of a health of the one or more components based on an application of the data to at least one model, and outputting the assessment. Embodiments of the disclosure may be applied to one or more components of a drive shaft of an aircraft.

Diagnosis of drive shaft disc couplings

A system for monitoring for pushrod faults in an aircraft includes a pushrod; a sensor () mounted on the pushrod (), the sensor () wirelessly transmitting measured pushrod load data; a receiver () receiving the measured pushrod load data; a model () receiving flight data and generating a modeled pushrod load profile; and a fault detector () comparing measured pushrod load data to the modeled pushrod load profile to detect a pushrod fault.

Method and system for detecting pushrod faults

A computer-implemented method, system, and computer program product for virtual monitoring of aircraft fleet loads are provided. The method includes calculating virtual load data associated with an aircraft from a set of orthogonal waveforms. The method also includes calculating a set of coefficients as a function of parametric data and high frequency data associated with an aircraft. The method further includes storing the set of coefficients on the aircraft and transmitting the set of coefficients to a ground-based system configured to reproduce the virtual load data based on a copy of the set of orthogonal waveforms and the received set of coefficients in order to perform aircraft fleet management.

Virtual monitoring of aircraft fleet loads

A method of determining a maneuver performed by an aircraft having sensors for monitoring motion data, the method including periodically sampling the sensors to electronically determine segments of motion data of the aircraft; aggregating sequences of the segments of the motion data; comparing the aggregated segments of motion data to models of particular maneuvers; and determining the maneuver performed by the aircraft.

Method of determining a maneuver performed by an aircraft

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Southbury, CT, United States of America

Mark W Davis