Data Interoperability for Aerospace IVHM Systems

Aerospace systems today are generating a lot of data and for the most part all this data is being generated by siloed entities (by various stakeholders like components/sub-system manufacturers, OEMs, operators) and ends up living within the four walls of these individual entities. For the industry to fully benefit from this data there needs to be a transparent way to share this data while strictly controlling the proprietary nature of the data and adhering to all contracts. The SAE HM-1 technical committee is writing an aerospace information report (AIR) 6904 to describe a digital data landscape and approach that can support health management [1]. Integrated vehicle health management (IVHM) systems cut across many disciplines and boundaries and can benefit from structured landscape and well defined approach. For example, data associated with a fault in an aircraft subsystem like the engine must travel through multiple systems and boundaries before it can be analyzed by the cognizant personnel. Today the landscape is pretty ad-hoc; with not many standards governing the data handling, storage, analysis, and disposal. This information report is a beginning in describing how a more systematic way of structuring the interactions might make the job of dealing with all this data a little easier. In this paper, the AIR 6904 is summarized to introduce it to larger aerospace community in order to improve it further in subsequent revisions incorporating the feedback.