The Boeing Company
ONBOARD DIAGNOSIS AND CORRELATION OF FAILURE DATA TO MAINTENANCE ACTIONS

Abstract:

A method is provided for diagnosing a failure on an aircraft that includes aircraft systems configured to report faults to an onboard reasoner. The method includes receiving a fault report at an onboard computer of the aircraft from an aircraft system of the aircraft systems, the fault report indicating failed tests reported by the aircraft system. The onboard reasoner accesses an onboard diagnostic causal model represented by a graph describing known causal relationships between possible failed tests reported by the respective ones of the aircraft systems, and possible failure modes of the respective ones of the aircraft systems. The onboard reasoner diagnoses a failure mode of the aircraft system or another of the aircraft systems, from the failed tests, and using a graph-theoretic algorithm and the onboard diagnostic causal model. A maintenance action is determined for the failure mode, and a maintenance message is generated including the maintenance action.