Looking back at aviation history, multiple factors such as e.g. improved training or Safety Management System implementation have brought continuous significant safety improvements. Innovative and advanced control also played a major role in enhancing the safety, especially thanks to technology like the digital Fly-By-Wire (FBW) systems first introduced in 1988 with the Airbus A320 Program. FBW technology provides more sophisticated control of the aircraft and flight envelope protection functions.
However, some systems failures may lead to unexpected behavior of these useful features which could lead, under some extremely unlikely combination of factors and/or circumstances, to more complex situations to manage from the control point of view. A particular failure class of interest is related to aircraft sensors prone to harsh environmental (e.g. probe contamination), operating (e.g. severe fuselage damage) or damage conditions (e.g. during maintenance) which could lead to simultaneous and potentially consistent multiple erroneous measurements. The current certified system monitoring state of practice is mainly based on consistency tests, cross checks, or built-in-test of various sophistication, and inspection.
This dissemination workshop will present the final results and conclusions of the NADIR project (New Air Data Monitoring) which is dedicated to the introduction of additional safety nets that are meant to catch complex failures upon occurrence and which is expected to enable the next step in aviation safety