BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Conventionally, an aircraft monitoring system comprises one or more sensors for monitoring one or more parameters of the aircraft.

Such a monitoring system is used in particular to detect the occurrence of a failure, or else to anticipate the occurrence of a failure by analyzing changes in one or more parameters of the aircraft (a process referred to as health monitoring). Such a monitoring system may also make it possible to validate the presence of any piece of equipment or object in the aircraft.

When designing an aircraft, it is often difficult to integrate a monitoring system. Specifically, the sensors sometimes need to be positioned in locations that are awkward to access, and it is often difficult to ensure that the measurements taken by the sensors are returned to a data concentrator or to maintenance equipment. The cables to which the sensors are connected may present considerable weight and they are sometimes difficult to install. Cables also tend to reduce the reliability of the monitoring system, in particular when they pass through environments subjected to severe environmental constraints (temperature, vibration, impacts, etc.).

The monitoring system is difficult to certify, since the sensors and the cables might interact with numerous external pieces of equipment belonging to other systems, either voluntarily via electrical connections, or else involuntarily by generating various disturbances.

It is even more difficult to integrate and certify a new monitoring system in a pre-existing aircraft. Specifically, under such circumstances, the pre-existing aircraft was not designed to receive the new monitoring system. The new monitoring system must therefore be integrated without disturbing equipment that is external to the monitoring system, which equipment was not designed to operate in the presence of the new monitoring system. It should be observed that this problem is quite considerable, since the life-cycle of an aircraft from the beginning of its design to the end of its lifetime can last for several tens of years. It is therefore fundamental to be able to integrate and certify a new monitoring system of higher performance in a pre-existing aircraft.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION

An object of the invention is to facilitate integrating and certifying a monitoring system in an aircraft during its design stage or in a pre-existing aircraft.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In order to achieve this object, there is proposed an aircraft monitoring system comprising an LPWAN network made up of pieces of measuring equipment and an LPWAN reception terminal, the LPWAN reception terminal also being adapted to be connected to maintenance equipment of the aircraft, each piece of measuring equipment comprising:a sensor arranged to measure a parameter of the aircraft;an LPWAN antenna and an LPWAN transmitter arranged to transmit measurement data produced by the sensor to the LPWAN reception terminal;an independent power source that powers the piece of measuring equipment;a main cut-off member connected between the independent power source and the LPWAN transmitter; anda main control component arranged to monitor operating parameters of the LPWAN transmitter and to open and close the main cut-off member selectively as a function of the operating parameters.

Since each piece of measuring equipment includes its own LPWAN transmitter for transmitting the measurement data and also an independent power source for supplying it with power, only the LPWAN reception terminal needs to be connected to the on-board network. This serves to simplify integrating and certifying the monitoring system of the invention in a new aircraft or in a pre-existing aircraft.

For certification activities, there is a fundamental requirement that any equipment that can transmit radio frequency (RF) energy must comply with the RTCA aviation standard DO-160 Section 21. In particular, this standard requires that the level of RF energy that is transmitted must be below a predetermined threshold for each frequency.

By means of the main cut-off member connected between the independent power source and the LPWAN transmitter, the main control component can deactivate the LPWAN transmitter by physically cutting off its power supply.

The main control component is thus certain to be able to deactivate the LPWAN transmitter in the event of an operating problem that might lead to RF energy being transmitted in a manner that is incompatible with the above-mentioned standard.

This ensures that the measurement equipment will not disturb external equipment under any circumstances, and it ensures that the monitoring system complies with certification requirements.

Other characteristics and advantages of the invention appear on reading the following description of a particular, nonlimiting embodiment of the invention.

