Centralized Weight Calculation Platform for Aircraft CG Accuracy
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Solution Overview
Problem
The calculation of weight and center of gravity (CG) for large, complex products with multiple subcomponents is labor-intensive, prone to duplicative work, and often results in inconsistencies due to isolated efforts by multiple personnel, leading to accuracy issues and budgetary constraints.
Innovation Solution
A software system that integrates data from multiple sources, providing a central calculation worksheet accessible to all users, with features for viewing bill of materials (BOM), 3D images, data storage, filtering, and reporting, to standardize weight and CG calculations, and includes a graphical user interface for guiding users through the calculation process.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If multiple personnel work in isolation on respective portions of weight and CG calculations, then individual workload is distributed, but accuracy and consistency deteriorate due to duplicative work and different estimates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple isolated calculation efforts into a single centralized calculation worksheet that is accessible to all users. This consolidation eliminates duplicative work and ensures that all personnel work from the same data source, thereby maintaining calculation accuracy while still distributing the workload across multiple users.
Solution Approach 2:
The centralized calculation worksheet serves as a universal platform that multiple personnel can access simultaneously. It provides a common interface for entering, viewing, and verifying weight and CG calculations, ensuring consistency across all users while allowing distributed participation in the calculation process.
2Measurement precision
If a centralized calculation worksheet is implemented, then calculation accuracy and consistency improve, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a software system as an intermediary that manages the centralized calculation worksheet. This intermediary handles data storage, retrieval, and verification automatically, reducing the manual complexity burden on users while maintaining high calculation accuracy through standardized procedures.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses digital copies of calculation data stored in a database, allowing multiple users to access identical information without manual duplication. This eliminates errors associated with manual copying while maintaining a single source of truth for all calculations.
3Adaptability or versatility
If manual weight and CG calculations are performed for complex products, then flexibility in handling unique cases is maintained, but time consumption and labor intensity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by automatically retrieving component weight data from an integrated database before the actual CG calculation. This pre-fetching of data reduces the time required for manual data gathering while maintaining the flexibility to handle unique calculation cases through the standardized worksheet interface.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to processes and software used to standardize the calculation of the weight and CG of a product. The processes and software integrate data from multiple sources and confirm the accuracy of the data. The software program standardizes the calculation of weight and CG by using a central calculation worksheet accessible to all users tasked with determining the weight and balance of a product. The software includes functionality for viewing Bill of Material (BOM) and 3D images, for operating a calculation worksheet, for storing and filtering data, and for reporting data.