Star Navigation Collects another Patent for Inflight Monitoring System

Toronto-based Star Navigation says the Hong Kong government awarded it a patent for its monitoring system that analyzes an aircraft's condition while inflight, before reporting fault alerts and other information to ground personnel.

According to the Toronto-based company, Hong Kong's patent award for its Inflight Safety Monitoring System (ISMS) follows an earlier protection from the U.K.  It has patents pending in the U.S. Canada, Germany, Japan, Australia and India.  In addition the system has been certified by several civil aviation authorities including the FAA and Transport Canada.

Star says ISMS is a novel technology that collects data from an aircraft's FDR (flight data recorder), FMS (flight management system), and air data system, analyzes them, checks for exceedances, performs diagnostics, and transmits pertinent information to its ground facility for further distribution via the Internet.  Beyond that, it monitors important trends and reports them as well, and automatically generates a post flight report of other relevant data that are sent to predetermined departments and individuals as desired.

The ISMS is a complete data acquisition, monitoring and datalink transmission system, which includes an ASU (airborne server unit), produced by NAT Seattle, a Chelton Group company that was formerly known as Pentar Avionics.

All the data collected on the aircraft are translated into readable English, and then transmitted via VHF datalink or satcom to Star's ground facility.  When an incident occurs, or if a problem is anticipated, Star will notify pre-designated individuals or departments within a using airline of the situation in prescribed ways that can include paging, SMS (short message service), email or phone.

Star Navigation says ISMS is the first system in the world to feature in-flight monitoring, as well as data-analysis and diagnostics with a real-time, secure connection between aircraft and the ground, made possible through current technology and satellite transmission.

The company says it will demonstrate ISMS at the Singapore Air Show in February.  01-31-2006.

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