Aircraft Contextual Information Manager for Fault Correlation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current airplane system failure management is complex for flight crews due to interconnected and interdependent systems, requiring integration of siloed system state information to assess aircraft health effectively.
Innovation Solution
A status information management system that correlates checklist data to create a holistic, function-level representation of aircraft health, associating components with defined function categories and flagging fault categories for display.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If system state information is displayed in siloed synoptic displays, then each system can be monitored individually, but the flight crew must integrate information from disparate systems manually, increasing workload and complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges siloed system state information into a unified functional representation that displays interdependencies across multiple systems. The functional representation integrates data from disparate systems (e.g., electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic) into a cohesive view that shows how failures in one system affect other systems, eliminating the need for manual integration by flight crews.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary processing layer that automatically correlates system state information and generates functional representations. This intermediary system processes raw data from multiple sources, identifies interdependencies, and presents integrated information to flight crews, reducing the cognitive burden of synthesizing information from multiple synoptic displays.
2Reliability
If flight crews manually integrate system information during non-normal operations, then comprehensive understanding of aircraft health can be achieved, but decision-making time increases and workload increases during emergencies
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary analysis of system interdependencies and potential failure cascades before failures occur. By pre-establishing functional representations that show how systems are interconnected, the system can immediately present relevant information when failures occur, eliminating the need for flight crews to manually analyze complex interdependencies during emergencies.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms that automatically update functional representations based on real-time system state changes. When failures occur, the system continuously monitors and updates the functional representation to show current interdependencies and affected systems, providing flight crews with dynamic, accurate information for rapid decision-making.
3Loss of information
If detailed system information is provided to flight crews, then comprehensive understanding of system interdependencies is achieved, but information overload increases and ease of operation decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments overwhelming system information into functional categories and hierarchical levels. Instead of presenting all raw system data, the system organizes information by functional representations that group related systems and their interdependencies, allowing flight crews to access detailed information only when needed while maintaining an overview of overall aircraft health.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by providing different levels of information detail in different contexts. The functional representations display summarized interdependency information at the overview level, with the ability to drill down into specific system details only when flight crews need to investigate particular failures, optimizing information presentation based on operational context.
Data Source
AI summary
A status information management system correlates checklist data from all stored checklists to create a holistic, function level representation of aircraft health. Components are associated with defined function level categories. When a component fault is detected, the contextual information management system identifies each function level category that includes that component, and flags that function level category as having a fault. Such flags may be represented on a display where each function level category is displayed. A flight crew member selecting the function level category may see all systems impacted by the component fault. When selecting a function level category, the information management system may render a graphical depiction of the aircraft and the systems included in the function level category. The component fault may be depicted along with an impact criticality to the rendered systems.