Flight Data Monitoring and its Application on Algorithms for Precursor Detection Aerospace ...

118 Pages·2014·5.36 MB·English

by  Andre C. Marta

Flight Data Monitoring and its Application on Algorithms for
Precursor Detection
Pedro Filipe Martins Soares
Thesis to obtain the Master of Science Degree in
Aerospace Engineering
Supervisors: Prof. António José Nobre Martins Aguiar
Eng. Hélder António Silva Mendes
Examination Committee
Chairperson: Prof. Fernando José Parracho Lau
Supervisor: Prof. António José Nobre Martins Aguiar
Member of the Committee: Prof. João Manuel Gonçalves de Sousa Oliveira
November 2014
“Whatweknowisadrop,whatwedon’tknowisanocean.”
SirIsaacNewton
ii
Acknowledgments
IwouldliketothankProf. Anto´nioAguiarfortheopportunitytoworkatTAPandforallthesupportduring
the revision of this work. Also, to Eng. He´lder Mendes my word of gratitude for all the patience, help,
guidanceandsympathyduringmystayatTAPthatmadethisworkpossibleandtoeveryoneatTAPthat
helpedmeduringthisperiod.
Tomyfamily,forallthecare,love,patienceandhelpduringnotonlymycollegeyearsbutmyentirelife.
Last but not least, to my college friends who had the same difficulties as me during this period of our
lives, these five years of college were challenging but also very enjoyable because of them. Finally, to
mychildhoodfriendswhohavealwaysbeenwithmeinthegoodandbadmoments.
iii
Resumo
A crescente expansa˜o do ramo aerona´utico no mundo actual traz uma acrescida preocupac¸a˜o a n´ıvel
de seguranc¸a no sentido em que o nu´mero de voos comerciais realizados tem aumentado
significativamente ao longo dos u´ltimos anos. Este aumento do nu´mero de voos comerciais implica
necessariamentequeaste´cnicaseprocedimentosdemonitorizac¸a˜odedadosdevooacompanhemo
referidocrescimento,tendodeseactualizaremelhorarestetipodeprocedimentosparaquesereduza
aoma´ximoqualquertipodeincidentes.
A recolha de dados de voo e´ realizada pelos sistemas a bordo da aeronave, os dados sa˜o gravados e
maistardedescodificadosnaestac¸a˜odeleituradedadosemterra. Comosdadosquesa˜oobtidosda
operac¸a˜o dia´ria das aeronaves de uma companhia ae´rea realizam-se estudos estat´ısticos e que
demonstrem as tendeˆncias de evoluc¸a˜o de va´rios paraˆmetros de interesse onde os resultados sa˜o
tambe´m enviados para outros departamentos, sendo por este motivo a estac¸a˜o de leitura um dos
sectoresmaisimportantesparaaoptimizac¸a˜odosn´ıveisdeseguranc¸adeumacompanhiaae´rea.
Com a presente tese, desenvolveram-se algoritmos na linguagem de programac¸a˜o R cujo objectivo
seria apoiar a ana´lise dia´ria aos dados de voo que e´ feita no software AGS. Numa primeira fase
desenvolveram-se algoritmos de filtragem de trajecto´rias de voo aplicadas a fases de voo de
aproximac¸a˜o a` pista e de aterragem, de detecc¸a˜o de pontos de touchdown e de passagem pelo
threshold da pista para a fam´ılia da frota Airbus A320, com exportac¸a˜o de resultados para o Google
Earth. Posteriormente realizaram-se estudos de distribuic¸o˜es de velocidade e de altitude a` passagem
pelo threshold e no ponto de touchdown, onde se realizou tambe´m um estudo de risco de sa´ıda de
pista. Desenvolveu-se tambe´m um algoritmo em R que produz automaticamente relato´rios de
aterragens cujos pontos de touchdown sa˜o considerados at´ıpicos atrave´s de um modelo RLR e
implementaram-se seis novos procedimentos de operac¸o˜es de voo no software AGS. Finalmente,
estudou-se a influeˆncia do efeito de solo durante as fases de aterragem e descolagem assim como
modosdedetecc¸a˜odesteefeitopelossensoresdoavia˜o.
Palavras-chave:
Monitorizac¸a˜odeDadosdeVoo,Algoritmos,SistemasAvio´nicos,Aterragem
iv
Abstract
The current growth of the aeronautic industry in today(cid:48)s world brings about an additional concern in
termsofsafetyduetothewaythatthenumberofcommercialflightshasbeenincreasingoverthepast
fewyears. Thisincreaseinthenumberofcommercialflightsimpliesthatthetechniquesandprocedures
used in flight data monitoring match the referred growth, being necessary to update and improve this
typeofprocedurestoreduceasmuchaspossibleanytypeofincident.
Theflightdatacollectionisdonethroughonboardaircraftsystems,theflightdataisstoredanddecoded
lateratthegroundstation. Withthegathereddatacomingfromthedailyoperationoftheairline(cid:48)saircraft
fleetseveralstatisticalandtrendstudiesaremadeforparametersofinterestwheretheresultsalsoserve
asinputforotherdepartmentstowork,thisisthereasonwhythegroundstationisofutmostimportance
inanairlinecompany.
Withthepresentthesis,Rprogramminglanguagealgorithmsweredevelopedtosupportthemaindaily
flight data analysis performed with AGS software. In a first stage algorithms were developed regarding
aircraft trajectory filtering from the original data mostly applied to the final approach and landing flight
phases, touchdown point detection and threshold crossing point detection for the Airbus A320 family
fleet, where the obtained results were exported to Google Earth. Subsequently, several ground speed
and altitude distributions were investigated at the touchdown and threshold crossing points, where a
runway excursion risk study was also performed. It was also created an R algorithm that will
automatically generate landing reports whose touchdown points are considered atypical based on an
RLR model and six new flight operations procedures were implemented in AGS. Finally, it was
investigatedthegroundeffectinfluenceonthelandingandtakeoffphasesaswellaswaysofdetecting
thiseffectbyaircraftsensors.
Keywords:
FlightDataMonitoring,Algorithms,AvionicSystems,Landing
v
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Resumo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
ListofTables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
ListofFigures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
Nomenclature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 Introduction 2
1.1 MotivationandBackground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 ThesisOutline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 AircraftSystemsandFlightData 7
2.1 GeneralSpecificationsofAirbusA319/A320/A321 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 FlightDataAnalysisandAircraftSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.1 IndicatingandRecordingSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.2 FlightManagementSystem(FMS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2.3 GlobalPositioningSystem(GPS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.4 InstrumentLandingSystem(ILS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.5 InertialReferenceSystem(IRS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 AnalysisGroundStation(AGS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.1 SagemFlightPhases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.4 FlightDataExportingandDataSimplifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3 AircraftTrajectories 24
3.1 TrajectoryPlotting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.2 SmoothingSplines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.3 GaussianSmoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4 LandingProcedures 31
4.1 RunwaySpecifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
vi
4.2 ThresholdPointDetection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2.1 ILSApproach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2.2 AccuratePositionApproach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.3 TouchdownPointDetection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.4 Flare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.5 RegularizedLogisticRegressionModel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5 ResultsandDiscussion 47
5.1 ApproachandLandingTrajectory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.1.1 GaussianSmoothingvsSmoothingSplines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5.2 ThresholdDetectionMethods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.2.1 HeightandSpeedatThreshold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.3 TouchdownPoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.3.1 RunwayExcursionDiagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.4 AutomaticReportGeneration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.5 AGSProcedureImplementation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.5.1 DeepandShortLanding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.5.2 FlareTime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.5.3 FlareGroundDistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
6 GroundEffect 86
6.1 GeneralOverview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.2 GroundEffectDetection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
7 Conclusions 93
7.1 Achievements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
7.2 FutureWork. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Bibliography 98
A ParametersExportedfromAGS 99
vii
List of Tables
2.1 AirbusA320familyspecifications[7] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2 SAGEMflightphasesandrespectivedecimalvalues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3 Flightphasesandtheirdescription[20]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4 CSVdatasamplefromAGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.1 Fractionofalandingapproachwithcoordinatesdata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.1 Lisbonairportrunwaysinformation(datafromAGS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2 TAP(cid:48)sfleetV andL dimentions[32] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
GS GS
4.3 Touchdownpointdetection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.1 Thresholdevaluationdata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.2 HeightatthresholdstatisticalvaluesfortheA319 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.3 GroundspeedatthresholdstatisticalvaluesforA319. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.4 HeightatthresholdstatisticalvaluesfortheA320 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.5 GroundspeedatthresholdstatisticalvaluesfortheA320 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.6 HeightatthresholdstatisticalvaluesfortheA321 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.7 GroundspeedatthresholdstatisticalvaluesfortheA321 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.8 GroundspeedattouchdownstatisticalvaluesfortheA319 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.9 GroundspeedattouchdownstatisticalvaluesforA320 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.10 GroundspeedattouchdownstatisticalvaluesfortheA321 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.11 Maximumdecelerationrates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.12 Flightparametersatthresholdandtouchdowninstantsexample. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.13 Airdistancetableexample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.14 Procedures3801and3803 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.15 Procedures3801and3803monitoringwindow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.16 Computedongroundparametersusedforprocedures3801and3803 . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.17 Aircraftparametersusedforprocedures3801and3803 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.18 Localvariablesusedforprocedures3801and3803 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.19 Reportparametersforprocedures3801and3803 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.20 Procedures3751and3753 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.21 Procedures3751and3753monitoringwindow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
viii
5.22 Computedongroundparametersusedforprocedures3751and3753 . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.23 Aircraftparametersusedforprocedures3751and3753 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.24 Localvariablesusedforprocedures3751and3753 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.25 Reportparametersforprocedures3751and3753 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.26 Procedures3755and3756 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.27 Procedures3755and3756monitoringwindow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.28 Computedongroundparametersusedforprocedures3755and3756 . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.29 Aircraftparametersusedforprocedures3755and3756 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.30 Localvariablesusedforprocedures3755and3756 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.31 Reportparametersforprocedures3755and3756 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
A.1 ExtractedParameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
A.2 ParameterTypeDecoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
A.3 AreaofAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
ix
List of Figures
1.1 Airtransportindustryimpactineconomy[1] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Percentageofaircraftaccidentsbyflightphase[5] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Numberofaccidentsperyearforcommercialaircraft[5] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1 AirbusA320familyengines[7] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 AirbusA320familyaircraftsizecomparison[7] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3 CockpitDUs[9] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 EISdiagram[9] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.5 FMSinterfaceblockdiagram[11] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.6 FMSfunctionalblockdiagram[11] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.7 GPSmajorsegments(fromEuropeanSpaceAgency) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.8 TheWGS84CoordinateSystemDefinition[13] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.9 VHFLocalizerdiagram[15] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.10 UHFGSdiagram[15] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.11 IRSplatform[16] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.12 IRSblockdiagram[16] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.13 Flightdatarouteflowchart[18] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.14 AGSworkstationflowchart[18] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.15 Flightphasesdiagram[18] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.16 CSVfilesample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.17 Step approximation (red) and linear interpolation (blue) for the radio altitude sample of
Table2.4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.1 Unsmoothedtrajectoryexample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2 FlowchartforexportingflightdatafilesasKML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.3 Differenttypesofsplineinterpolationinblue,redandgreen[23]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.4 ExampleofaB-spline[23] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.5 Exampleofatrajectorysmoothedwithsplines(λ=0.2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.6 Exampleofabellcurvewithµ=0andσ =1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.7 ExampleofatrajectorysmoothedwithGaussmethod(σ =10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.1 Runwaymarkings(fromFederalAviationAdministration(FAA)) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
x