Method and apparatus for aircraft systems management

Communications: electrical – Aircraft alarm or indicating systems

Reexamination Certificate

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C340S995190, C701S014000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06346892

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to aircraft systems management and more particularly to an extension of the system described and claimed in our U.S. Pat. No. 5,844,503 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Avionics Management” issued Dec. 1, 1998 and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. (Referred to herein as the 503 patent). In the 503 patent, a system, usable with a flight management computer, is presented using a plurality of commands (action, target and parameter words) formed in air traffic control syntax to provide the computer with an input necessary to accomplish the commands. In the 503 patent, the computer operates to interpret a number of words in each category of command to enable the control of various aircraft functions such as airspeed, altitude etc. The disclosure contained in the 503 patent is incorporated here by reference. Reference should also be had to a co-pending application entitled Aircraft Utility Systems and Control Integration, Ser. No. 08/721, 818 filed Sep. 27, 1996 (herein referred to as the 818 application) and a co-pending application entitled Automated Aircraft Ser. No. 09/042057 filed Mar. 13, 1998, (herein referred to as the 057 application) both in the name of Douglas G. Endrud and both assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
The present invention utilizes a control language dissimilar to the language of the 503 patent in that it is not in air traffic control syntax but is in an easily understandable form for both human and computer so as to quickly and accurately provide human understanding while enabling the computer to perform specific control functions associated with interior aircraft operations such as cabin temperature, cabin pressure and the like. Also included in the present invention is a “parser” which is used to assemble the inputs made by the aircraft personnel into the proper syntax for use by the computer and to determine the properness of the commands.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Present day aircraft utilities management systems utilize a plurality of control knobs and switches to manage the interior operations of the aircraft. (See, for example,
FIG. 1
of the 818 application). Utilizing a plurality of knobs and switches to change interior operations of the aircraft, the pilot must find the control knob or switch for the desired operation and turn or switch it to the desire setting. This requires a search and a manual operation usually deflecting the pilot's eyes from the control panel and/or a view of the surrounding air space for considerable time periods. One solution to this problem is found in the 818 application and in the 057 application.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention draws upon the teachings of the above co-pending applications to establish a yet more simplified way to perform the desired control. More particularly, the present invention uses a control language, which is recognizable in common syntax for use in accomplishing changes and settings to the interior aircraft control functions in a rapid manner. While the specific language of the possible instructions may vary from pilot to pilot, the present invention employs a parser which is programmed to interpret various alternate ways of expression, recognize predetermined cue words, and place the instruction in a preferred form which will be acceptable for the computer to understand and perform the commands. One function of the parser is to categorize the pilot input into a relatively small number of sub instructions falling into “system”, “action” and/or “target” categories. “Systems” may be considered the aircraft system (e.g. cabin temperature, overhead light, pressure, etc.) upon which some action is desired. “Actions” may be thought of as verbs (e.g. connect, raise, open, select, etc.), and prepositions (to, between, from, above, etc.) and in some cases merely “on” or “off”. “Targets” are the units or conditions of some of the nouns (pounds, degrees, feet, on, off, etc.). Sentences made up of these commands are put in a format which the computer and the human operator will recognize. If, for example, the pilot desired to change the aft cabin temperature to 80 degrees, he might enter “aft cabin temperature to 80 degrees”. The Parser would recognize “aft cabin” and “temperature” as a system to be acted on and would be programmed to assume that a change in aft cabin temperature was desired since that is all that could happen. The parser would also recognize “80” and would be programmed to assume that this was the desired new temperature and that it was in Fahrenheit degrees (or if desired, in Centigrade). Accordingly, the simplified command “Aft Cabin Temp To 80 Degrees” would be understood by computer and by the pilot to indicate the desired change in cabin temperature. Even the word “To” could be omitted since it would be presumed and other words such as “at” might also be presumed depending on the context.
It is desirable that the command which the pilot enters appear on a display, located on the control panel (preferably in an anti-glare area such as near the navigation display) so as to minimize the distraction. In order to produce this display a keyboard, cursor control device, speech recognition equipment or other I/O device may be employed. When the command is complete and clear, the parser need do no more than revise it for the computer's use but, in some cases, the operator might enter a partial command, which the parser would not completely recognize. For example, the pilot might enter a partial command such as “temperature” and the parser would interpret the “temperature” command as requiring a change to a desired or new temperature but would not know what portion of the aircraft was involved nor the desired temperature. Accordingly, the parser would cause a menu to appear listing the various items where the temperature could be made to change. One of these would be “aft cabin temperature” which the pilot would then select and this phrase would be displayed. The parser would still not know the desired new temperature and might then display “enter desired new temperature” which would result in the pilot entering “80 degrees”, which would then be displayed. Upon recognition of a valid executable command string, the system would allow the pilot to enter the “go” command, causing the computer to command the temperature utility control to produce the desired change. If the pilot merely entered “aft cabin”, the parser would interpret this to require some change in a condition of the aft cabin, in which case, the parser might cause a menu showing the various conditions (temperature, lighting, pressure, etc.) and again the pilot would select “aft cabin temperature” and cause this phrase to be displayed. Alternately, the pilot may wish to reduce the number of keystrokes required and simply enter the letter “A” and all of the functions starting with the letter “A” would be displayed on the menu. The pilot would then scroll down to select “aft cabin temperature” which would again be displayed.
The parser may also be programmed to recognize an action command such as “increase” or “decrease” or “change” or simply “to” which the pilot would enter. Alternately, in the case of most of the systems in an aircraft, a change can be expressed merely by the word “to”. Since the only action involving the cabin temperature is to change it, the parser would automatically insert the word “to” after the “aft cabin temperature” in sending the message to the computer. The next step would be to enter the parameter command which in this case would be the desired temperature in degrees (generally in Fahrenheit). Accordingly, the pilot would enter “80” or “80 degrees”, and the parser would send “80°” to the computer. Both the computer and the pilot are able to understand this command “aft cabin temperature to 80 degrees” so that when the pilot is satisfied from the monitor that the desired commands is correct, he may activate the “go” command on the control panel, as for example

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