6,004 research outputs found
Explaining Aviation Safety Incidents Using Deep Temporal Multiple Instance Learning
Although aviation accidents are rare, safety incidents occur more frequently
and require a careful analysis to detect and mitigate risks in a timely manner.
Analyzing safety incidents using operational data and producing event-based
explanations is invaluable to airline companies as well as to governing
organizations such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United
States. However, this task is challenging because of the complexity involved in
mining multi-dimensional heterogeneous time series data, the lack of
time-step-wise annotation of events in a flight, and the lack of scalable tools
to perform analysis over a large number of events. In this work, we propose a
precursor mining algorithm that identifies events in the multidimensional time
series that are correlated with the safety incident. Precursors are valuable to
systems health and safety monitoring and in explaining and forecasting safety
incidents. Current methods suffer from poor scalability to high dimensional
time series data and are inefficient in capturing temporal behavior. We propose
an approach by combining multiple-instance learning (MIL) and deep recurrent
neural networks (DRNN) to take advantage of MIL's ability to learn using weakly
supervised data and DRNN's ability to model temporal behavior. We describe the
algorithm, the data, the intuition behind taking a MIL approach, and a
comparative analysis of the proposed algorithm with baseline models. We also
discuss the application to a real-world aviation safety problem using data from
a commercial airline company and discuss the model's abilities and
shortcomings, with some final remarks about possible deployment directions
Fault prediction in aircraft engines using Self-Organizing Maps
Aircraft engines are designed to be used during several tens of years. Their
maintenance is a challenging and costly task, for obvious security reasons. The
goal is to ensure a proper operation of the engines, in all conditions, with a
zero probability of failure, while taking into account aging. The fact that the
same engine is sometimes used on several aircrafts has to be taken into account
too. The maintenance can be improved if an efficient procedure for the
prediction of failures is implemented. The primary source of information on the
health of the engines comes from measurement during flights. Several variables
such as the core speed, the oil pressure and quantity, the fan speed, etc. are
measured, together with environmental variables such as the outside
temperature, altitude, aircraft speed, etc. In this paper, we describe the
design of a procedure aiming at visualizing successive data measured on
aircraft engines. The data are multi-dimensional measurements on the engines,
which are projected on a self-organizing map in order to allow us to follow the
trajectories of these data over time. The trajectories consist in a succession
of points on the map, each of them corresponding to the two-dimensional
projection of the multi-dimensional vector of engine measurements. Analyzing
the trajectories aims at visualizing any deviation from a normal behavior,
making it possible to anticipate an operation failure.Comment: Communication pr\'esent\'ee au 7th International Workshop WSOM 09, St
Augustine, Floride, USA, June 200
Fusing Symbolic and Numerical Diagnostic Computations
X-2000 Anomaly Detection Language denotes a developmental computing language, and the software that establishes and utilizes the language, for fusing two diagnostic computer programs, one implementing a numerical analysis method, the other implementing a symbolic analysis method into a unified event-based decision analysis software system for realtime detection of events (e.g., failures) in a spacecraft, aircraft, or other complex engineering system. The numerical analysis method is performed by beacon-based exception analysis for multi-missions (BEAMs), which has been discussed in several previous NASA Tech Briefs articles. The symbolic analysis method is, more specifically, an artificial-intelligence method of the knowledge-based, inference engine type, and its implementation is exemplified by the Spacecraft Health Inference Engine (SHINE) software. The goal in developing the capability to fuse numerical and symbolic diagnostic components is to increase the depth of analysis beyond that previously attainable, thereby increasing the degree of confidence in the computed results. In practical terms, the sought improvement is to enable detection of all or most events, with no or few false alarms
Honeywell Enhancing Airplane State Awareness (EASA) Project: Final Report on Refinement and Evaluation of Candidate Solutions for Airplane System State Awareness
The loss of pilot airplane state awareness (ASA) has been implicated as a factor in several aviation accidents identified by the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST). These accidents were investigated to identify precursors to the loss of ASA and develop technologies to address the loss of ASA. Based on a gap analysis, two technologies were prototyped and assessed with a formative pilot-in-the-loop evaluation in NASA Langleys full-motion Research Flight Deck. The technologies address: 1) data source anomaly detection in real-time, and 2) intelligent monitoring aids to provide nominal and predictive awareness of situations to be monitored and a mission timeline to visualize events of interest. The evaluation results indicated favorable impressions of both technologies for mitigating the loss of ASA in terms of operational utility, workload, acceptability, complexity, and usability. The team concludes that there is a feasible retrofit solution for improving ASA that would minimize certification risk, integration costs, and training impact
Toward a unified PNT, Part 1: Complexity and context: Key challenges of multisensor positioning
The next generation of navigation and positioning systems must provide greater accuracy and reliability in a range of challenging environments to meet the needs of a variety of mission-critical applications. No single navigation technology is robust enough to meet these requirements on its own, so a multisensor solution is required. Known environmental features, such as signs, buildings, terrain height variation, and magnetic anomalies, may or may not be available for positioning. The system could be stationary, carried by a pedestrian, or on any type of land, sea, or air vehicle. Furthermore, for many applications, the environment and host behavior are subject to change. A multi-sensor solution is thus required. The expert knowledge problem is compounded by the fact that different modules in an integrated navigation system are often supplied by different organizations, who may be reluctant to share necessary design information if this is considered to be intellectual property that must be protected
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