Storage box volume sensor with VOC sensing safety feature
阅读说明：本技术 具有voc感测安全特征的储物箱容积传感器 (Storage box volume sensor with VOC sensing safety feature ) 是由 J·A·尤珀 于 2018-05-16 设计创作，主要内容包括：提供了舱顶储物箱传感器的操作,该传感器用于监测在包括VOC传感器的箱内消耗的容积,该VOC传感器监测在箱内可能变得过热的物料,诸如电子产品中的锂离子电池。当前,火灾或烟雾检测器不集成到储物箱中,这使得该区域易受经常由乘客存储的电子部件形成的火灾和释气伤害。这种事件的提早检测可以通过快速报告事件并给出事件的位置来防止火灾在飞机上的传播。所述系统利用了适用于包括无线传感器网络和存储容积传感器的其他专利。传感器通过监测箱空间内的空气质量来监测物料的释气或闷烧的物料。(Operation of an overhead locker sensor for monitoring volume consumed within a bin including a VOC sensor that monitors materials within the bin that may become overheated, such as lithium ion batteries in electronic products, is provided. Currently, fire or smoke detectors are not integrated into the storage compartment, which makes the area vulnerable to fire and outgassing, which often results from passenger storage of electronic components. Early detection of such an event may prevent the spread of a fire on the aircraft by quickly reporting the event and giving the location of the event. The system utilizes other patents adapted to include wireless sensor networks and storage volume sensors. The sensor monitors the outgassed or smoldering material of the material by monitoring the air quality within the box space.)
1. A system for mitigating the risk of fire or chemical exposure in an enclosed environment, the system characterized by:
a volatile organic compound sensor (103) mounted on an interior surface of the enclosed environment in communication with a microcontroller (105), the microcontroller (105) having been preprogrammed with a threshold VOC concentration; and
an indicator in communication with the microcontroller (105) effective to annunciate when the threshold VOC concentration has been exceeded.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein: the enclosed environment is a storage bin (213).
3. The system of claim 2, wherein: the storage compartment is located in a passenger cabin of a commercial aircraft.
4. A sensor assembly, the sensor assembly characterized by:
a Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) sensor (103) configured to communicate with a microcontroller (105);
a microcontroller (105);
-radio transceiving means (107) for transmitting data; and
an energy harvester (109) electrically interconnected to the microcontroller.
5. The sensor assembly of claim 4, further characterized by a distance sensor (111) for detecting a tank volume.
6. The sensor assembly of claim 5, wherein: the distance sensor (111) is at infrared frequencies.
7. The sensor assembly of claim 5, wherein: the distance sensor (111) is one of a plurality of distance sensors mounted to a surface of a storage compartment and spaced apart to divide the storage compartment into a plurality of segments.
8. The sensor assembly of claim 7, wherein: the segments are divided based on bin length and depth.
9. The sensor assembly of claim 7, wherein: the distance sensor (111) is configured to measure a distance from a top of the locker to a bottom of the locker.
10. The sensor assembly of claim 4, wherein: the volatile organic compound sensor (103) is configured to monitor smoke or exhaust.
11. The sensor assembly of claim 10, wherein: the fumes or exhaust gas originates from a lithium battery.
12. The sensor assembly of claim 10, wherein: the voc sensor (103) monitors the air quality within the storage bin.
13. The sensor assembly of claim 12, wherein: the VOC sensor (103) annunciates a significant event.
14. The sensor assembly of claim 13, wherein: the significant event is selected from the group consisting of elevated levels of VOCs, outgassing, or fire.
15. A method of sensing a storage compartment volume, the method characterized by:
measuring an initial reference measurement of the storage bin (213);
measuring a distance from a top of the bin to a top of the loaded material using a distance sensor (111);
setting, using a microcontroller (105), a time range for measuring a subsequent distance using the distance sensor; and
the percentage used is calculated based on the initial reference measurement.
16. The method of claim 15, further characterized by: a storage bin location and a percentage of space used at the location within the storage bin are displayed on a display panel.
17. The method of claim 15, further characterized by: a significant event is detected via a volatile organic compound sensor (103).
18. The method of claim 17, further characterized by: -announcing the significant event via the volatile organic compound sensor (103).
19. The method of claim 18, wherein: the significant event is selected from the group consisting of elevated levels of VOCs, outgassing, or fire.
Background
Storage bins are ubiquitous in the passenger compartments of commercial aircraft. The storage bin is located above the passenger seat and stores all types of material that passengers carry onto the aircraft. U.S. patent application publication No. US 2015/0241209A1 "Apparatus and Method to Monitor the Occupied Volume with a Fixed or variable Volume" to Jouper et al, and U.S. patent application publication No. 2017/0255855A 1 "network System for Autonomous Data Collection" to Jouper et al disclose sensors for detecting the Volume of a material placed in a storage bin. Both US 2015/0241209a1 and US 2017/0255855 are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
Current bin sensors sense an item occupying a portion of the storage bin volume and determine the volume occupied within the bin. The tank sensors report this information to the external network for notification to flight attendants, ground crew and/or the data collection system.
Although tank volume occupancy is valuable information, it is desirable to monitor not only the tank volume consumed, but also the state of the stored material. More specifically, materials, such as lithium batteries and any devices containing lithium batteries, large storage capacitors, and small electronic products, can cause problems on aircraft. And in particular lithium batteries, are the source of a variety of in-flight accidents such as outgassing, electronic odors, and spontaneous combustion fires. Storage cases present a unique situation in which laptop computers, tablets, smartphones, and other electronic products are often packaged inside carry-on luggage, briefcases, and other racks. Each of these brackets provides fuel to a fire if a fire occurs in the storage compartment area.
Current fire or smoke detectors are not integrated into the storage compartment, which makes these closed compartments particularly vulnerable.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus and method for monitoring the contents of a storage compartment.
It is further desirable to provide a storage bin sensor having volatile organic compound ("VOC") sensing characteristics.
Disclosure of Invention
A roof storage bin sensor for monitoring occupied volume within a storage bin is disclosed. The sensor is particularly suitable as a VOC sensor to monitor materials or items that may become overheated in a storage case, such as lithium ion batteries in electronic products.
VOC sensors are configured to detect early outgassing, odors, and fires from electronic components that are often stored by passengers. Early detection may allow for rapid reaction on board an aircraft, prevent the propagation of an onboard fire or gas emergency via rapid reporting and flagging of events, and may even avoid emergency landings.
According to the present invention, a VOC sensor monitors outgassing or smoldering materials by monitoring the air quality within the storage bin space.
Drawings
The foregoing summary, preferred embodiments, and other aspects of the disclosed subject matter will be better understood with reference to the following detailed description of specific embodiments when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
fig. 1 is a sensor assembly according to an embodiment.
FIG. 2 is a diagram of an embodiment of a sensor assembly within a storage compartment.
Fig. 3A is a schematic diagram according to an embodiment.
Fig. 3B is a schematic diagram of a radio interface according to an embodiment.
Fig. 3C is a schematic diagram of a ToF sensor according to an embodiment.
Fig. 3D is a schematic diagram of a VOC sensor according to an embodiment.
Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements. The arrows in the schematic should be understood to represent logical paths that generally indicate the direction of flow of information or logic, and such arrows do not necessarily represent conventional electrical paths.
Detailed Description
To mitigate a fire or chemical leak event, a system that can detect such problems early and explain to the crew the event and the location of the event within the tank assembly can mitigate the spread of the fire and allow the crew to respond to the situation in a timely manner, rather than waiting for the fire to appear outside the storage tank.
Fig. 1 depicts a
In an embodiment, the distance from the top of the tank to a reflective surface (such as the bottom of the tank or material stored at the bottom of the tank) and then back to the top of the tank where the sensor resides, represents the distance measured by the time-of-flight sensor. For example, time-of-flight sensors measure the time it takes for light to travel from the sensor to a reflective surface and then back again. In further examples, the distance is split in two to measure the distance from the sensor to the surface and to measure the speed of light. Thereby, the amount of space available in the storage compartment is calculated by the distance measured with the reference measurement of the empty compartment.
The volume/distance sensor is a time-of-flight sensor or any other suitable sensor for measuring distance. Such volume/distance sensors may be selected from Infrared (IR) or laser (sub-IR) frequency sensors, for example. These sensors are ideally suited based on small physical size and robustness. Multiple sensors are used to divide the storage area into segments based on the length and depth of the tank, which measures the distance from the top of the tank to the bottom of the tank. For example, a length and a depth of the storage bin may be measured, and the length and the depth of the storage bin may be divided into a predetermined number of segments, each segment receiving at least one sensor, based on both the length and the depth. In order to monitor smoke or the exhaust of lithium batteries or other devices, VOC sensors are used to monitor the air quality inside the storage bin continuously or at a pre-programmed time interval and to notify by means of a sensor network whether a significant event has occurred. As discussed herein, a significant event may include any worrying, dangerous, or otherwise elevated levels of VOCs, outgassing, fire, or any other form of combustion.
Volume sensing
Using the initial measurement as a reference, each distance sensor measures the distance from the top of the tank to the material added by the passengers when loading the aircraft. The microcontroller sets the time range from measurement to measurement and calculates the percentage of use based on the reference and depth measurements taken during sensor initialization. This percentage of use is displayed to the flight crew at the centralized panel, which displays the layout of the aircraft, the storage bin location, and the percentage of used or available space. This allows the crew to early alert the crew of the available tank space volume when the passenger loads the overhead storage tank. By monitoring the volume of space, the flight crew can reduce the increase in loading time by moving excess baggage from the aircraft interior to the cargo compartment and locating the available compartment space. The system can immediately report the available positions and relative volumes.
Air quality sensing
Air quality sensing is used to monitor events such as vapor outgassing from lithium batteries, capacitors, and other energy storage devices. In general, energy storage devices present unique problems with self-powering. Lithium batteries have shown a tendency to self-ignite due to impurities in the chemicals used to manufacture the lithium batteries. Because lithium batteries store energy for consumption by devices attached to it, such as laptop computers, tablet computers, or cellular phones, lithium batteries become a self-starting and self-sustaining possibility for overheating, outgassing, or flammable events. This event in a hidden space such as a locker may not present itself to passengers or flight attendants until a fire begins to exit the locker itself. This will then involve some, if not all, of the material in the tank in a propagating fire. Early detection and accurate localization of events is particularly advantageous and aids in flight safety.
In embodiments, the notification of the event may be local to the storage bin, such as a Light Emitting Diode (LED) indicator on a remote panel, display, handheld device, or ceiling projection device. The projection device may be located above the box opposite the box location where the event occurred. The projector may then project a red or other suitably colored display in front of the problematic box to quickly illustrate flight attendants of the location of the significant event. In further embodiments, the notifications may be hyper-localized, such that predetermined segments within the locker may each contain a corresponding LED indicator, which may then be located above the segment and configured to display an alarm or explain the location when a significant event occurs.
In addition, the sensor may be a separate device for monitoring spaces and locations where outgassing or fire events will be difficult to visually detect, such as in the ceiling, behind a panel, a side wall, under a seat, in a kitchen, a closet, a cockpit, or a flight attendant rest area. The independent sensors may be single or multiple VOC sensors, microcontrollers, radios, energy storage devices operating the sensors, or energy harvesters. Other sensors, such as IR (thermal sensors), may also be used in conjunction with the VOC sensors to detect and annunciate a pre-ignition or post-ignition fire. Each of these sensors helps flight attendants identify them before a possible fire has spread. Reducing the time from the event to the detection may mean saving lives and equipment on the aircraft.
Description of functions
The sensor is preferably located in the top of the overhead locker. The location here allows a continuous measurement of the used storage volume. In addition, vapor tends to rise from the malfunctioning device. Other placements may also work, however, for obvious reasons, the top is preferred.
Fig. 1 graphically depicts four ToF sensors with three VOC sensors and a microcontroller (uC) circuit including a radio transceiver and energy harvesting using solar cells or miniature batteries. The ToF sensor measures the tank clearance distance from the sensor to the bottom of the tank and back. Laser sensors are used for speed, accuracy and resistance to ambient light. In general, it is advantageous to select the wavelengths of light frequencies that are not included in sunlight, because ambient light does not interrupt the measurement period.
uC is the heart of the sensor. It controls the radio transceiver, sensor measurements, measurement timing and radio transmissions. The uC communicates with each sensor across an inter-integrated circuit (I2C) interface to initialize each sensor and collect measurement data (either ToF data or VOC data). Each sensor is individually enabled and in communication with the uC.
The volume measurements are made periodically, such as once every second or once every 10 seconds, or any other suitable period of time. The volume measurement is usually only performed when the aircraft is boarding the aircraft. That is, the data is only relevant during the loading process of the aircraft. VOC sensors, on the other hand, are set during initialization using pre-programmed thresholds. The threshold value represents a minimum VOC level for detection and notification. The threshold level is set to an environmental quantity that is higher than the VOC seen in the environment in which the sensor is located. In the cabin of a commercial passenger aircraft, an exemplary VOC ambient concentration is 300 parts per billion and an exemplary threshold VOC concentration to trigger an alarm is 500 parts per billion.
The VOC sensor is set to measure periodically, such as every 250-. The minimum time for each measurement by the current sensor is 250 milliseconds. A delay of more than 60000 milliseconds (60 seconds) between measurements may delay the sensing of an event in relatively real time. Oversampling in a time interval of less than 250mSec will use more power and shorten the battery life of the system. Depending on available power and other system requirements, the limits of the upper and lower sample rate limits may be exceeded.
When the pre-programmed VOC level is exceeded, an interrupt is sent from the VOC sensor to the uC. The interrupt indicates that an event has triggered the sensor by exceeding a threshold. The uC processes the event and sends an alert to an external receiver via the radio, or activates a local light or display to indicate that an event has occurred within the locker. The display or remote display directs flight attendants to the location of the event to take additional action.
Fig. 2 illustrates an embodiment of a sensor assembly within a
Fig. 3A-3D are schematic diagrams of a sensor system including a uC, a transceiver, a VOC sensor, and a ToF sensor.
Figure 3A illustrates a microcontroller/radio combination. This may be a single chip solution combining the uC and the radio or a discrete solution separating the radio and uC by means of a communication bus between the microcontroller and the radio. J1 is a USB programming port for loading software that operates the uC, the radio, and the sensors in concert. During loading of the appropriate code, the regulator U1 provides regulated 3VDC power from the USB connector. U2 is a 32-bit uC with a communication bus to the radios and sensors. The chip select outputs CS0-CS7 of the microcontroller allow the uC to address each sensor individually by setting the interface to a
Figure 3B is a radio interface. This is a 2.4GHz radio with E1, El being the matching antenna for this radio frequency. The component associated between the RFP/RFN output of the radio and the antenna is an impedance matching network that provides the highest antenna gain for the least energy applied by radio U6. Y2 sets the operating frequency of the radio. Communication from the uC over a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus provides control of the radio, transfer of data from the uC to the radio, and a command set to wirelessly transmit radio information.
Fig. 3C illustrates a ToF sensor for measuring the distance from the sensor to the floor of the tank or the material located in the tank. A reference is taken when the bin is empty in order to calculate the percentage used. After which successive measurements are made and compared with a reference to calculate the percentage of space consumed under each sensor. The measurements of the sensors are averaged to become the total volume consumed. The values calculated for the segments and the total value may be reported to a display to show the available space, the space consumed, and the area within the bin where space is available.
Fig. 3D illustrates a VOC sensor. These sensors are controlled by the uC to measure CO2 and voc values within the tank space. The read value is compared to a threshold value and if the value exceeds the threshold value, the flight attendants will be alerted to the event. The uC initiates a measurement, compares the result with a threshold value, sends an alarm by means of the radio if the value exceeds the limit value, and in turn sends an alarm to a display local or remote to the tank, stating in which tank and which tank section the event is located.
It should be understood that the various components of the disclosed subject matter can communicate with each other in various ways. For example, the components may communicate with each other via wires or alternatively wirelessly and by electrical signals or via digital information.
Although the disclosed subject matter has been described and illustrated with respect to embodiments thereof, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that features of the disclosed embodiments may be combined, rearranged or the like to produce additional embodiments within the scope of the invention, and that various other changes, omissions and additions may be made therein and thereto, without parting from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
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