Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Vehicle diagnosis or maintenance indication
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-18
2001-09-25
Nguyen, Tan (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Vehicle diagnosis or maintenance indication
C701S031000, C701S034000, C701S035000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06295488
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a method for locating faults in a complex system and a device for implementing this method.
In the context of the present invention, a complex system is understood to be a system comprising a plurality of components, notably electronic components, and computers having many interconnections. Such complex systems exist in extremely varied fields of activity, for example in industry, in automobile engineering or in aviation.
In a complex system of this type, notably an aircraft, there are generally monitoring devices capable of determining the existence of a fault or a malfunction in said system, notably by checking the consistency of information transmitted by different components of said system, for example for safety reasons.
However, because of the many interconnections, defective operation of one component of said system has direct or indirect effects on other components of the system so that a single fault can be the source of a multitude of information transmitted by different components and each capable of being considered as transmitted by a defective component.
Thus, although it is generally possible to determine more or less easily the existence of a fault in such a complex system, it is often difficult or even impossible to locate such a fault.
This difficulty stems notably from the fact that it is impossible to store all the available information transmitted by the different components of the system, for example during an operating cycle of the system and capable of being used, for example by a maintenance operator, to locate a fault. In addition, even if such storage were technically feasible the mass of information stored would then be too great for a maintenance operator to be able to deduce any fault location from it.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to overcome these drawbacks. It concerns a method for locating effectively any type of fault in a complex system, irrespective of its complexity, and notably in an aircraft.
To this end said method according to the invention is remarkable in that:
A/ operation of said system is monitored and when a malfunction is detected a malfunction signal is transmitted;
B/ information about said system is continuously stored in a first memory, in particular the actual values of a plurality of parameters of said system, said recorded information being deleted after a particular storage period;
C/ each time a malfunction signal is transmitted, at least some of the information stored in said first memory is stored in a second memory together with information about changes to the values of at least some of said parameters during a particular period after transmission of said malfunction signal; and
D/ the location of each fault giving rise to a malfunction signal is determined from the information stored in said second memory.
Thus by means of the invention:
it is possible to store all available information capable of being used to locate a fault since said first memory is continually cleared, releasing space and allowing continuous storage of all said information; and
on the occurrence of a fault all the information enabling it to be located is collected, since the information generated during a particular period prior to the occurrence of the fault is stored in the second memory, together with changes to the parameters considered during a particular period after the occurrence of the fault,
which overcomes the aforementioned drawbacks.
In addition, and advantageously:
a malfunction signal is transmitted by an operator on detecting a malfunction of the system; and/or
monitoring of the system and transmission of the malfunction signals are effected automatically by at least one monitoring device of said system.
In addition, to facilitate the storage and/or to be able to use a first memory of reduced capacity and cost, in step B/:
the information is advantageously compressed before it is stored; and/or
the information to be stored is selected according to its usefulness in helping location.
The storage period of step B/ and the period of step C/ are preferably each one minute.
Further, in step C/ the information to be stored in said second memory is advantageously selected from the information stored in said first memory, which reduces the amount of information to be stored.
In addition, in a particularly advantageous embodiment:
steps A/, B/ and C/ are performed while the system is operating and D/ is performed subsequently to said operation, in particular during maintenance when the system is stopped, for example at the end of a flight for an aircraft; and/or
steps A/, B/ and C/ are performed on said system and step D/ is performed on a processing station external to said system.
In this latter case the information stored in the second memory is advantageously downloaded into a memory of said processing station by remote loading means, which enables a fault to be located while the system is operating (notably during the flight of an aircraft) and any parts to be changed to be prepared so as to be able to carry out maintenance quickly, for example during a stopover for a civil aircraft.
The information relating to a plurality of malfunction signals is preferably stored in said second memory, in particular during an operating cycle of the system, for example during a flight of an aircraft, and in step D/, to locate a fault relating to a particular malfunction signal, all the information about said particular malfunction signal and only this information is extracted from said second memory.
In a particularly advantageous embodiment, in step D/, to locate a fault, at least some of the information contained in said second memory is compared with the results of simulations.
In addition, according to the invention, in a step E/, the information in said second memory used to locate a fault is stored in a database together with information relating to said fault and its location. The information thus collected can in particular be used to develop automatic fault diagnostic software.
The invention also concerns a device for implementing the aforementioned method. According to the invention said device is remarkable in that it includes:
means for monitoring the system capable of transmitting a malfunction signal;
means for continuously storing information about said system in a first memory;
means for storing at least some of the information stored in said first memory in a second memory at the time of transmission of a malfunction signal; and
means for locating a fault from the information stored in said second memory.
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Eurocopter
Marc-Coleman Marthe Y.
Marshall Gerstein & Borun
Nguyen Tan
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