Ground support equipment (GSE) for aircraft condition monitoring

EIGHTEENTH EUROPEAN ROTORCRAFT FORUM

D · 02

Paper N° 111

Ground Support Equipment (GSE) for Aircraft Condition Monitoring

System (ACMS)

A. Levionnois

SFIM, Massy, France

September 15-18, 1992 AVIGNON, FRANCE

Ground Support Equipment (GSE) for Aircraft

Condition Monitoring System (ACMS)

A. Levionnois

SFIM, Massy, France

1. Purpose

Ground Support Equipment (G S E) is used for aircraft and engine maintenance. Its primary functions are :

• Change of DMU programmation

(parameter calibration, data recorder format)

• Retrieval and decompression of S.A.R. aircraft data

• Retrieval of reports and AD E P T I A P M automatic processing.

All the information are stored in a data base and a fleet management is assumed.

2. General description of ACMS system

For maintenance requirements, it is necessary to acquire and to memorize aircraft data during its flight.

The data is acquired by the maintenance module (DMU), stored in a magnetic data recorder and in a mass memory recorder (SAR). It can be sent to the pilot via a terminal (MCDU) and an on-board printer.

The data acquisition and its output towards the different equipment mentioned above is totally programmable by the Ground Support Equipment (G.S.E) with a floppy disk through the on-board data loader. Recovering of stored data is done either by AGARS transmission or by a floppy disk once the aircraft is back on ground. The information are stored in the GSE data base. Then, GSE can process ADEPT and APM trend monitoring, SAR data decompression.

Architecture of SFIM Aircraft Condition Monitoring DATA REPORTS RECORDER DATA LOADER DMU PROGRAMMATION DMU PRG DMU PROGRAMMATION DECOMP SAR DECOMPRESS ION 0

0

OTO

D FLEET ADMIN 0

D

DATA RETRIEVAL G.S.E. FLEET MANAGEMENT~----~ GSE MU INTERFACE A CARS REPORT MANAGEMENT ARMS2

--GSE PASMOD ADMINISTRATION DBCOMP 111- 2

...

...

ADEPT APM SIT A AIRLINE GROUND STATION

+-••)

ENGINE TREND AIRPLANE f.-~ .... } PERFORMANCE

3. Introduction to GSE software

ARMS 2 (Software 9) Report data DECOMP (Software 8) display SAR data decompression (on-board information) DBCOMP (Software 7) ORACLE data base compression MENPRG (Software 6) Modification of the menu text FLEET (Software 1) Management of !he - Fleet - DMU customer version (OBPM) - GSE input/output ORACLE

data base

GSE-MU (Software 5) Interface with AGARS system DMUPRG (Software 2) Programmation of the DMU customer version (OBPM) ADMIN (Software 3)

User and system

administration

PASMOD (Software 4)

Password modification

Ground Support Equipment is devided into 9 software modules making it modular. Each software reads and/or writes information into a relational data base management system of ORACLE type.

The softwares modules are : 1. FLEET 2. DMUPRG 3. ADMIN 4. PASMOD 5. GSE-MU 6. MENPRG 7. DBCOMP 8. DECOMP 9. ARMS2

Management of fleet, DMU versions and input/output external to GSE

Programmation of DMU functions

Management of system and categories of persons required to use GSE

Modification of each user passwords Interface with the ACARS system Modification of the menu presentation Compression of the ORACLE data base Decompression ot the SAR data

Management ot reports, ADEPT and APM execution

4. Fleet management

TAIL D-ABXA NC 1 ESN-L : 100001 ESN-R : 100002 DMU : 1 TAIL : D-ABXB NC :2 ESN-L : 200001 ESN-A : 200002 DMU : 1 TAIL : D-ABVX NC : 255 ESN-L : 300001 ESN-R : 300002

DMU : 2 (TEST VERSION)

~==

~==

-~

FLEET ,_.-

-...

-NC characteristics DMU versions Reports SAR data '-..

-ORACLE data base

Fleet management consists in :

·Aircraft definition (NC Type, Engine configuration, DMU version) • DMU version definition

• GSE output :floppy disk for DMU programmation • GSE input : floppy disk with SAR data and reports

5. Programmation of Data Management Unit

DMU PRG

Programmation of each DMU version

ORACLE Data Base

Bus configuration

Parameter (aquisition and calibration) Flight phase limits

21 fixed reports triggering limits 5 full programmable reports MCDU - Alpha call-up

-Menus - APU fail help Data recorder format SAR format

ACARS output

DMU PRG is used to modify a DMU customer version. The programmable data are :

• DMU inputs : Bus configuration and parameters

• DMU outputs : Reports, MCDU, data recorder, SAR and ACARS definition

GSE checks for the consistency between all information and at the end of a modification session, generates compressed tables to be loaded into DMU's E2PROM via the data loader.

6. Smart Access Recorder Data Decompression

0

D

ORACLE data base AGARS G.S.E. Decompressed data file SAR decompression DECOMP SAR ground station

The SAR data like aircraft path are compressed and stored during the flight into a mass memory recorder.

It is sent to GSE with floppy disk media or by AGARS transmission. The data are decompressed in order to be clearly displayed or to be sent to the SAR ground station.

7. ADEPT and APM interface

0

0

Retrieval reports ORACLE data base AGARS Automatic processing .---, ADEPT Report management ARMS 2

APM

Engine trend monitoring Airplane Performance trend monitoring

During the flight, several kinds of reports can be generated like stability, exceedance reports. All these reports are sent to GSE by floppy disk or by AGARS transmission.

Then, CFMI ADEPT is automatically performed using : • Cruise reports for engine trend monitoring

• Take-off reports for outside air temperature limit computation

BOEING APM is automatically performed using airplane performance report (consumption data and evolution of gravity center)

GSE will also display report stored in the ORACLE data base.

8. User management

SOFTWARE$ Allowed category

C

User name : DUPONT Password : xxx~::_x;_

ABC D ...

X X

GSE _FLEET NC Creation ~

E---

X•

Category A to P

_X:

_I - DMUPRG

E

---

•• , : I : I

..

,

..._ DECOMP

E

---ADEPT transfer - ARM$2

E---~ -ADMIN

E

---Access to GSE is possible only by entering a user name and password.

All defined users are classified into 16 categories A to P (Pilots, Maintenance, ... )

The functions of all the 9 GSE softwares are access protected according to the 16 categories as shown above (a "X" means that the category is allowed to access to the function).

11 1 - 8 I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

X

A. Hardware and software requirements

Hardware

• 1 BM - PC ;:: 286 ;:: 16 MHz • Printer 80 or 132 columns • Floppy disk drive 3" 1/2 HD • Hard disk 2 80 MB

• RAM extension ;:: 4 MB

Software

• ORACLE RDBMS for PC V5. 1 C • MICROTEC C - 68000 cross compiler • DOS ;:: 3.3

• Test editor

B. Network configuration

,---

-...

'--

----ORACLE

SERVER data base

Ethernet

Terminal 1 Terminal 2 Terminal n

An evolution of GSE can be its translation into a network configuration in order to :

• Report softwares on different PC

• Centralize data base on high capacity hard disk