Flight Data Monitoring System Provides Insight to Safety Issues

In the area of air travel safety, Battelle helped develop The Morning Report: Advanced Proactive Safety and System Monitoring Tool, a computer software monitoring system that analyzes large bodies of digital flight data each evening to find atypical flight operations. The results are then presented each morning to air carrier operations managers who determine whether the atypical flights uncovered by The Morning Report describe true safety problems or just unusual circumstances.

The Morning Report can examine hundreds of flight parameters concurrently. These parameters describe aircraft flight dynamics; their configurations and control surface positions; the status of aircraft systems; and external temperature and other environmental variables. The Morning Report examines these parameters as a group, not one-by-one. This allows it to detect unusual data patterns as well as individual parameters that are well outside of normal operating ranges.

While the technology utilizes complex mathematical and statistical algorithms, it is easy to operate via a simple desktop application. Commercially available software allows air carriers to capture pre-defined data checks that capture known concerns. The Morning Report does something unique and different. It independently examines flight data to understand the many typical flight patterns into and out of airports around the world. Once The Morning Report has determined what typical flight operations look like, it can identify flight operations that do not fit any standard operating pattern. BecauseThe Morning Report uses this dynamic frame of reference, it can detect newly emerging safety problems that commercial technology (which only looks for previously recognized anomalies) might miss.

By analyzing key elements of an atypical flight, airlines can gain insight into potential situations in a way and to a degree never before possible. The capabilities provided by The Morning Report enable aviation experts to rapidly identify rare real-world events (out of tens of thousands of flight hours), quickly display their characteristics, and identify those that may be precursors to unsafe situations.

The Morning Report is a valuable adjunct to commercial off-the-shelf flight data processing software. By using the two in combination, air carriers can identify both previously identified and newly emerging safety problems. Indeed, SAGEM USA, a leading provider of commercial flight data processing software, has procured a license to The Morning Report software. Other flight data software vendors have expressed an interest in following SAGEM’s lead.

The Battelle Team responsible for developing the system earned a 2005 R&D 100 Award for the computer software product. This award is shared with co-developers NASA Ames Research Center, Battelle-operated Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Flight Safety Consultants, ProWorks Corporation, and Safe Flight.

For more information, contact Mr. Loren Rosenthal at (650) 960-6010, lrosenthal@mail.arc.nasa.gov.