Eofdm Conference 2013 Labareyredonadey False FDM Events

Reducing rate of false FDM events
EOFDM conference – Köln – 23/01/2013
Edouard Garnier de Labareyre Thierry Donadey

FDM System Engineer - Sagem Flight Data Analysis Expert – Air France
Context of this project
 Internal algorithms refactoring at Air France

 Current observation : difficulties to have reliable statistics which are representative
of the reality
 Complete re-engineering of FDM procedures in progress
 What is Svetlana ?
 E.U. – Russian project with Sagem (2010-2012): Improving flight data analysis with
new techniques such as data-mining
 One of the topic of the project was the improvement of existing FDM process
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European
Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n
ACPO-GA-2010-265940 SVETLANA.
1 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

Context of this project
 Air France – Sagem collaboration within Svetlana

 Sharing of skills:
operational FDM experience + software expertise
 Improve analysis results quality as well as reusability

 Promote documented procedures
 Validate a workflow for high quality procedures development

Summary
1) Understanding the causes of false events
2) Detecting and correcting invalid parameters
3) Using parameter invalidity information
4) Results for Air France fleet
5) Conclusion
3/ EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

Understanding the causes
of false events
Examples

False “SevereTurbulence” (VRTG involved)

False “Speed low” (CAS involved)

False “Go around” (ALT STD involved)

Identification of responsibilities in false event detection
“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link”
Weak detection algorithm Bad input data

 Ifthe algorithm is too dependant on  Inputdata can be noisy, which often
a single parameter, or not covering cause a simple algorithm to fail
enough from possible situations, it
will fail in any unexpected situation
 Willnot be developed in this  Two approaches

presentation, but is also part of the  filter data in each event algorithm
project
 filter data once and for all

Detecting and correcting
invalid parameters
Theory

Looking for patterns
Air speed Altitude Vertical acceleration
Roll
 Peaks, isolated or grouped
 Value gaps
 Parameter out of normal range

Correction is not enough
?
?
? or
 It is often not possible or not reasonable to correct the parameter value.
 We cannot honestly tell that a parameter is “corrected” if we are not confident

in the correction that has been applied

Parameter invalidation
 When no correction is possible, the parameter should be invalidated
 What an invalidation means:
“This parameter should not be used during this period, because it was not
possible to correct it with a sufficient level of confidence. ”
 Need to attach a boolean “validity” parameter to each parameter we want to

monitor
Implementation
Peak
Correction
detection parameter corrected
(9-median
filter)
Gap
parameter
detection
Out of Global
invalidation parameter validity
range
detection VALID
INVALID

Median Filter
 Input 9 elements
5 9 3 1000 15 11 7 17 13
 Sort
3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 1000
 Result is the element in median position
11

Using parameter invalidity
information
In practice

Impact on existing algorithms
 Any algorithm can start using parameter invalidation and correction by

introducing a simple test on parameter invalidation
BEFORE AFTER
IF ( CAS > limit ) THEN IF ( CAS_VALID ) THEN
EVENTV(…) IF ( CAS_CORRECTED > limit ) THEN
ENDIF EVENTV(…)
ENDIF
ENDIF
 But this could also be used in other powerful ways

 Behave in degraded mode if one of the parameters needed for the computation is
invalid
 Use it for additional parameter computation
 Anything else you could imagine that uses PARAM_VALID and
PARAM_CORRECTED !

The invalidation paradox
 If we stop here, we’re still missing something…
ROLL
PITCH
Chances are strong that this flight doesn’t raise any event about parameter PITCH or
ROLL as it’s quite always invalid ! Yet this flight deserves to be seen.
 Need a maintenance event that monitors the invalidity ratio on the whole
flight, for each parameter which goes through invalidation & correction
algorithms.
cas_invalidity_ratio = TOTAL_INVALID_SAMPLES / TOTAL_SAMPLES
IF ( cas_invalidity_ratio > 0.25) THEN
EVENTV(…)
ENDIF

Improving FDM workflow
 Having this new maintenance oriented event on parameter validity reinforces

the maintenance retroaction loop of the FDM process
Classical FDM loop (Safety)
Maintenance loop
FDM
Pilot Aircraft Recorder
tool

Results on Air France fleet
( B747 & A340 )
Earnings

Overview of Air France fleet
 AF Fleet
 256 aircrafts
 820 flights per day
Aircraft
Fleet Flight / year
Number
A320 146 240 162

A330 15 10 353
A340 13 7 141
A380 8 3 786
B747 10 4 772
B777 64 32 226

« Shift » definition
 Parameter apparently correct: analysis possible with human eye
 Zoom on this parameter show some shifts: analysis not possible for IT system

Results for AF B747 fleet
 Replay of B747 flights for year 2011
 Non corrected and corrected parameter shift number measuring.
 Shift threshold :
- CAS : 30kts
- ALTST : 300ft
- PITCH : 10
- ROLL : 10
Shift number on Shift number on

Parameter %
input param corrected param
CAS 38 797 45 99.9
ALTST 297 568 2 110 99.3
PITCH 1 086 57 94.8
ROLL 919 120 86.9

Results for AF A340 fleet
 Replay of A340 flights for year 2011
 Non corrected and corrected parameter shift number measuring.
 Shift threshold :
- CAS : 30kts
- ALTST : 300ft
- PITCH : 10
- ROLL : 10
Shift number on Shift number on

Parameter %
input param corrected param
CAS 15 085 2 773 81.6
ALTST 127 198 1 682 98.7
PITCH 35 174 0 100.0
ROLL 36 644 83 99.8

Parameter correction with median filter

Gap detection not robust enough

Median fliter clipping

Conclusion
 Successful and very rich cooperation between two types of expertise
A promising start, still some things to improve

 Dealing with the parameters which don’t support well the 9-median filter (e.g.
PITCH & ROLL) with adaptive median filter
 Retrofit of the whole event detection set to use parameter invalidity
 Improvement of some event detection algorithms
 Covering the whole event set
 Paves the way to a common set of procedures in the AGS
 This work also led to the development of a methodology

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Reducing rate of false FDM events

EOFDM conference – Köln – 23/01/2013

Edouard Garnier de Labareyre Thierry Donadey

 Internal algorithms refactoring at Air France

1 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

 Air France – Sagem collaboration within Svetlana

operational FDM experience + software expertise

 Improve analysis results quality as well as reusability

2 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

1) Understanding the causes of false events

2) Detecting and correcting invalid parameters

3) Using parameter invalidity information

4) Results for Air France fleet

3/ EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

4/ EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

5/ EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

6/ EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

7/ EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link”

Weak detection algorithm Bad input data

 Willnot be developed in this  Two approaches

8/ EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

9/ EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

Air speed Altitude Vertical acceleration

 Peaks, isolated or grouped

 Parameter out of normal range

10 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

 It is often not possible or not reasonable to correct the parameter value.

 We cannot honestly tell that a parameter is “corrected” if we are not confident

11 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

 When no correction is possible, the parameter should be invalidated

 What an invalidation means:

 Need to attach a boolean “validity” parameter to each parameter we want to

13 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

14 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

15 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

 Any algorithm can start using parameter invalidation and correction by

 But this could also be used in other powerful ways

16 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

 If we stop here, we’re still missing something…

17 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

 Having this new maintenance oriented event on parameter validity reinforces

Classical FDM loop (Safety)

18 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

19 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

A320 146 240 162

20 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

 Parameter apparently correct: analysis possible with human eye

21 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

 Replay of B747 flights for year 2011

 Non corrected and corrected parameter shift number measuring.

Shift number on Shift number on

22 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

 Replay of A340 flights for year 2011

 Non corrected and corrected parameter shift number measuring.

Shift number on Shift number on

23 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

24 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013

25 / EOFDM CONFERENCE / JANUARY 23 - 2013