FAIR Sensor Health Monitoring of Flight Test Data

Abstract The German Aerospace Center (DLR)’s In-flight Systems & Technology Airborne Research (ISTAR) research aircraft is equipped with extensive permanent sensor instrumentation for the scientific investigation of aerophysical phenomena. The measurement data as well as a large part of the parameters on the aircraft’s data bus are continuously recorded by an additional Data Acquisition System (DAQ). To evaluate measurement data to gain knowledge, the form of data storage and the linkage of Fault Detections is vital to avoid erroneous conclusions. By honoring the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) guiding principles, the detected faults, and anomalies shall aptly be linked to the measurement data. In this work, an application is developed to solve this problem by detecting faults, sensibly linking them to the measurement data and then visualizing the results to the user. To solve this task, methods from the SensOr Interfacing Language (SOIL) are employed. In addition, data is checked for completeness, plausibility and correctness by using statistical methods as well as approaches from the field of Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD). Finally, the performance and trueness of the application-toolchain is tested against known errors and validated on a dataset of ISTAR flight test data.