SAMPLING TO RECORD BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINANTS OF OCCUPANT ZONES IN AIRCRAFT

Abstract

Disclosed is a method including sampling an occupant zone of an aircraft by creating a data record that can be made available in the event of an outbreak, epidemic, or pandemic involving an occupant of the aircraft. The data record includes identification information which can be used to make available records to the relevant authority.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is related to and claims convention priority from Patent Collaboration Treaty Application No. PCT/CA2019/050766, filed Jun. 3, 2019, for AIR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT FOR PRESSURIZED AIRCRAFT, naming inter alia Luis Pablo Estable as applicant and inventor, and Tremolant Inc. as applicant, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This application relates to aircraft air quality in general, and to sampling to record biological contaminants of occupant zones in aircrafts, in particular.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

On most aircraft, the air necessary for life support at high altitude is pressurized and warmed in order to be usable through the Air System. On a pressurized aircraft, the shared occupancy of a pressurized zone of an aircraft may result in persons being temporarily exposed to the risk of breathing airborne droplets produced by other occupants which are may contain seriously harmful biological contaminants, such as for example bacteria, viruses, and/or fungi hazardous for human health. This contamination is a concern for passengers and especially for the flight crew for which the risk of repeated exposure over work shifts, and even a single exposure, may result in safety of flight considerations, increased cost of medical care, and/or loss of jobs, illness, or death not only for the occupants buy also any victims they later come into contact with. Military personnel, flight crew and pilots as well as passengers are all occupants that may from exposure to pathogens present in the droplets which are only later identified by the World health Organisation or other authority, such that addressing this risk systematically may help prevent outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics spreading by any occupant that is travelling by air.

Even if various technologies may be used, such as masks and face shields, to stop the propagation of airborne droplets, neither equipment nor specific airworthiness regulations have been raised to address this particular topic. Three challenging issues are to: find the best means to prevent the propagation of airborne pathogens on board of pressurized aircrafts; to improve the current quality of the air regarding any biological contaminants therein; and collect basic contamination data, which are dramatically missing, and not made available.

There is evidence that air quality improvement procedures are working on commercial, industrial and hospital projects. The fact that the aircraft industry is lagging in adoption of air quality improvement procedures may be in part due to the complexity of aircraft and the fact that the industry is highly regulated so that only aircraft qualified maintenance personnel can access certain parts of the air ventilation system and they do not have any procedures specified to, for example, to clean the air ducts in an aircraft.

There is clear logical, scientific and technical evidence that urgently show the risk that contamination by airborn droplets is present, such that technology that mitigates this risk is to be considered as a priority. The presence of biological contaminants is a primary concern and a significant improvement is required.

SUMMARY

There is a long felt need for the improvement of air quality on board of all airliners as this may result in improved health for all of humanity given the forecast of significant growth of both air traffic and bilogival pathogens in the coming years.

It would be advantageous to provide a method that can be used for sampling the occupant zones of aircrafts.

It would also be advantageous to provide a method that can be used for providing a data record related to the samples to make basic data regarding the samples more broadly available.

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method including the steps of: sampling an occupant zone of an aircraft to produce a sample; providing a data record that is related to the sample; and making the data record broadly available at least in the event of an outbreak, epidemic, or pandemic involving at least one of the occupants of the occupant zone of the aircraft.

Other aspects and features of the present disclosure will become apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon review of the following description of specific embodiments of sampling to record biological contaminants of occupant zones in aircraft in conjunction with the accompanying drawing figures.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the present disclosure will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawing figures, wherein:

FIG. 1 shows a schematic view of the pressurized zones of an example aircraft;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary application specific machine environment that can be used with embodiments of the present application;

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating steps of a method of sampling to detect biological contaminants of occupant zones in aircraft;

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating the typical life cycle of a data record.

Like reference numerals are used in different figures to denote similar elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Referring to the drawings, FIG. 1 shows a schematic view of the pressurized zones of an example aircraft. The aircraft includes pressurized occupant zones such as the pressurized flight deck 56, pressurized cabin 58, and non-occupant zones such as the pressurized cargo compartment 60, as well as the tail cone which as illustrated is not pressurized, as is often the case with airliners. Also shown are how, for example, fresh air 70 is processed by a pressurization system 72 to be mixed with bleed air at a bleed air system 74 that is used by the air conditioning pack 76 to pressurize the pressurized zones. Although we have illustrated the case where a gasper is used as a source of pre-existing air, a person of ordinary skill in the relevant field of art is enabled to adapting what is taught in this specification to a given aircraft. For example, pre-existing air flow 50 can also be found for example at the louvers or ceiling vent 62 at the top of the cabin, or other vents in cabins that do not have gaspers and have air return floor vent 64 usually found near the floor of the cabin, or the recirculation fan 66 usually found in the pressurized cargo compartment 60, at the air filter, or at or near an outflow valve 68 that are normally found in the pressurized cargo compartment, or any suitable source or sink of pre-existing air flow 50 in a pressurized zone of an aircraft. Similarly, it is contemplated that any change in geometry from circular, to square, to rectangular or otherwise to accommodate variations of pre-existing sources or sinks of pressurized air is within the scope of the present disclosure.

Reference is now made to FIG. 2. FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary application specific machine environment that can be used with embodiments of the present application. Application Specific Machine 900 is preferably a two-way wireless or wired communication machine having at least data communication capabilities, as well as other capabilities, such as for example audio, and video capabilities. Application Specific Machine 900 preferably has the capability to communicate with other computer systems over a Communications Medium 980. Depending on the exact functionality provided, the machine may be referred to as a smart phone, a data communication machine, client, or server, as examples.

Where Application Specific Machine 900 is enabled for two-way communication, it will incorporate communication subsystem 940, including both a receiver 946 and a transmitter 944, as well as associated components such as one or more, preferably embedded or internal, antenna elements (not shown) if wireless communications are desired, and a processing module such as a digital signal processor (DSP) 942. As will be apparent to those skilled in the field of communications, the particular design of the communication subsystem 940 will be dependent upon the communications medium 980 in which the machine is intended to operate. For example, Application Specific Machine 900 may include communication subsystems 940 designed to operate within the 802.11 network, Bluetooth™ or LTE network, both those networks being examples of communications medium 980 including location services, such as GPS. Communications subsystems 940 not only ensures communications over communications medium 980, but also application specific communications 947. An application specific processor 917 may be provided, for example to process application specific data, instructions, and signals, such as for example for GPS, near field, or other application specific functions. Depending on the application, the application specific processor 917 may be provided by the DSP 942, by the communications subsystems 940, or by the processor 910, instead of by a separate unit.

Network access requirements will also vary depending upon the type of communications medium 980. For example, in some networks, Application Specific Machine 900 is registered on the network using a unique identification number associated with each machine. In other networks, however, network access is associated with a subscriber or user of Application Specific Machine 900. Some specific Application Specific Machine 900 therefore require other subsystems 927 in order to support communications subsystem 940, and some application specific Application Specific Machine 900 further require application specific subsystems 927. Local or non-network communication functions, as well as some functions (if any) such as configuration, may be available, but Application Specific Machine 900 will be unable to carry out any other functions involving communications over the communications medium 9180 unless it is provisioned. In the case of LTE, a SIM interface is normally provided and is similar to a card-slot into which a SIM card can be inserted and ejected like a persistent memory card, like an SD card. More generally, persistent Memory 920 can hold many key application specific persistent memory data or instructions 927, and other instructions 922 and data structures 925 such as identification, and subscriber related information. Although not expressly shown in the drawing, such instructions 922 and data structures 925 may be arranged in a class hierarchy so as to benefit from re-use whereby some instructions and data are at the class level of the hierarchy, and some instructions and data are at an object instance level of the hierarchy, as would be known to a person of ordinary skill in the art of object oriented programming and design.

When required network registration or activation procedures have been completed, Application Specific Machine 900 may send and receive communication signals over the communications medium 980. Signals received by receiver 946 through communications medium 980 may be subject to such common receiver functions as signal amplification, frequency down conversion, filtering, channel selection and the like, analog to digital (A/D) conversion. A/D conversion of a received signal allows more complex communication functions such as demodulation and decoding to be performed in the DSP 942. In a similar manner, signals to be transmitted are processed, including modulation and encoding for example, by DSP 942 and input to transmitter 944 for digital to analog conversion, frequency up conversion, filtering, amplification and transmission over the communication medium 980. DSP 942 not only processes communication signals, but also provides for receiver and transmitter control. For example, the gains applied to communication signals in receiver 946 and transmitter 944 may be adaptively controlled through automatic gain control algorithms implemented in DSP 944. In the example system shown in FIG. 2, application specific communications 947 are also provided. These include communication of information located in either persistent memory 920 or volatile memory 930, and in particular application specific PM Data or instructions 927 and application specific PM Data or instructions 937.

Communications medium 980 may further serve to communicate with multiple systems, including an other machine 990 and an application specific other machine 997, such as a server (not shown), GPS satellite (not shown) and other elements (not shown). For example, communications medium 980 may communicate with both cloud based systems and a web client based systems in order to accommodate various communications with various service levels. Other machine 990 and Application Specific Other machine 997 can be provided by another embodiment of Application Specific Machine 900, wherein the application specific portions are either configured to be specific to the application at the other machine 990 or the application specific other machine 997, as would be apparent by a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the other machine 990 and application specific other machine 997 pertains.

Application Specific Machine 900 preferably includes a processor 910 which controls the overall operation of the machine. Communication functions, including at least data communications, and where present, application specific communications 947, are performed through communication subsystem 940. Processor 910 also interacts with further machine subsystems such as the machine-human interface 960 including for example display 962, digitizer/buttons 964 (e.g. keyboard that can be provided with display 962 as a touch screen), speaker 965, microphone 966 and Application specific HMI 967. Processor 910 also interacts with the machine-machine interface 9150 including for example auxiliary I/O 952, serial port 955 (such as a USB port, not shown), and application specific MHI 957. Processor 910 also interacts with persistent memory 920 (such as flash memory), volatile memory (such as random access memory (RAM)) 930. A short-range communications subsystem (not shown), and any other machine subsystems generally designated as Other subsystems 970, may be provided, including an application specific subsystem 927. In some embodiments, an application specific processor 917 is provided in order to process application specific data or instructions 927, 937, to communicate application specific communications 947, or to make use of application specific subsystems 927.

Some of the subsystems shown in FIG. 2 perform communication-related functions, whereas other subsystems may provide application specific or on-machine functions. Notably, some subsystems, such as digitizer/buttons 964 and display 962, for example, may be used for both communication-related functions, such as entering a text message for transmission over a communication network, and machine-resident functions such as application specific functions.

Operating system software used by the processor 910 is preferably stored in a persistent store such as persistent memory 920 (for example flash memory), which may instead be a read-only memory (ROM) or similar storage element (not shown). Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the operating system instructions 932 and data 935, application specific data or instructions 937, or parts thereof, may be temporarily loaded into a volatile 930 memory (such as RAM). Received or transmitted communication signals may also be stored in volatile memory 930 or persistent memory 920. Further, one or more unique identifiers (not shown) are also preferably stored in read-only memory, such as persistent memory 920.

As shown, persistent memory 920 can be segregated into different areas for both computer instructions 922 and application specific PM instructions 927 as well as program data storage 925 and application specific PM data 927. These different storage types indicate that each program can allocate a portion of persistent memory 920 for their own data storage requirements. Processor 910 and when present application specific processor 917, in addition to its operating system functions, preferably enables execution of software applications on the Application Specific Machine 900. A predetermined set of applications that control basic operations, including at least data communication applications for example, will normally be installed on Application Specific Machine 900 during manufacturing. A preferred software application may be a specific application embodying aspects of the present application. Naturally, one or more memory stores would be available on the Application Specific Machine 900 to facilitate storage of application specific data items. Such specific application would preferably have the ability to send and receive data items, via the communications medium 980. In a preferred embodiment, the application specific data items are seamlessly integrated, synchronized and updated, via the communications medium 980, with the machine 910 user's corresponding data items stored or associated with an other machine 990 or an application specific other machine 997. Further applications may also be loaded onto the Application Specific Machine 900 through the communications subsystems 940, the machine-machine interface 950, or any other suitable subsystem 970, and installed by a user in the volatile memory 930 or preferably in the persistent memory 920 for execution by the processor 910. Such flexibility in application installation increases the functionality of the machine and may provide enhanced on-machine functions, communication-related functions, or both. For example, secure communication applications may enable electronic commerce functions and other such financial transactions to be performed using the Application Specific Machine 900.

In a data communication mode, a received signal such as a text message or web page download will be processed by the communication subsystem 940 and input to the processor 910, which preferably further processes the received signal for output to the machine-human interface 960, or alternatively to a machine-machine interface 950. A user of Application Specific Machine 900 may also compose data items such as messages for example, using the machine-human interface 9160, which preferably includes a digitizer/buttons 964 that may be provided as on a touch screen, in conjunction with the display 962 and possibly a machine-machine interface 950. Such composed data items may then be transmitted over a communication network through the communication subsystem 910. Although not expressly show, a camera can be used as both a machine-machine interface 950 by capturing coded images such as QR codes and barcodes, or reading and recognizing images by machine vision, as well as a human-machine interface 960 for capturing a picture of a scene or a user.

For audio/video communications, overall operation of Application Specific Machine 900 is similar, except that received signals would preferably be output to a speaker 934 and display 962, and signals for transmission would be generated by a microphone 936 and camera (not shown). Alternative voice or audio I/O subsystems, such as a voice message recording subsystem, may also be implemented on Application Specific Machine 900. Although voice or audio signal output is preferably accomplished primarily through the speaker 965, display 962 and applications specific MHI 967 may also be used to provide other related information.

Serial port 955 in FIG. 2 would normally be implemented in a smart phone-type machine as a USB port for which communication or charging functionality with a user's desktop computer, car, or charger (not shown), may be desirable. Such a port 955 would enable a user to set preferences through an external machine or software application and would extend the capabilities of Application Specific Machine 900 by providing for information or software downloads to Application Specific Machine 900 other than through a communications medium 980. The alternate path may for example be used to load an encryption key onto the machine through a direct and thus reliable and trusted connection to thereby enable secure machine communication.

Communications subsystems 940, may include a short-range communications subsystem (not shown), as a further optional component which may provide for communication between Application Specific Machine 900 and different systems or machines, which need not necessarily be similar machines. For example, the other subsystems 970 may include a low energy, near field, or other short-range associated circuits and components or a Bluetooth™ communication module to provide for communication with similarly enabled systems and machines.

The exemplary machine of FIG. 2 is meant to be illustrative and other machines with more or fewer features than the above could equally be used for the present application. For example, one or all of the components of FIG. 2 can be implemented using virtualization whereby a virtual Application Specific Machine 900, Communications medium 980, Other machine 990 or Application Specific Other Machine 997 is provided by a virtual machine. Software executed on these virtual machines is separated from the underlying hardware resources. The host machine is the actual machine on which the virtualization takes place, and the guest machine is the virtual machine. The terms host and guest differentiate between software that runs on the physical machine versus the virtual machine, respectively. The virtualization can be full virtualization wherein the instructions of the guest or virtual machine execute unmodified on the host or physical machine, partial virtualization wherein the virtual machine operates on shared hardware resources in an isolated manner, to hardware-assisted virtualization whereby hardware resources on the host machine are provided to optimize the performance of the virtual machine. Although not expressly shown in the drawing, a hypervisor program can be used to provide firmware for the guest or virtual machine on the host or physical machine. It will be thus apparent to a person having ordinary skill in the art that components of FIG. 2 can be implemented in either hardware or software, depending on the specific application. For example, while testing and developing the Application Specific Machine 900 may be provided entirely using an emulator for the machine, for example a smartphone emulator running Android™ or iOS™. When deployed, real smartphones would be used.

Each component in FIG. 2 can be implemented using any one of a number of cloud computing providers such as Microsoft's Azure™, Amazon's Web Service™, Google's Cloud Computing, or an OpenStack based provider or the like, by way of example only. Thus, as will be apparent to a person having ordinary skill in the relevant field of art, depending on whether the environment in which operate the components of FIG. 2, the Communications medium 980 can be the Internet, an IP based medium such as a virtual, wired, or wireless network, an interconnect back plane on a host machine serving as a back bone between virtual machines and/or other real machines, or a combination thereof. For example, in the case of the communications subsystems 940, the Transmitter 944, Receiver 946 and DSP 942 may be unnecessary if the application specific machine is provided as a virtual machine. Likewise, when the application is a server provided as a virtual machine, the machine-human interface 960 and machine-machine interface 950 may be provided by re-use of the resources of the corresponding host machine, if needed at all.

Data can be represented with a bit, a nibble, a byte, a 16 bit, a 32 bit and a 64 bit values. A bit is a binary data structure that can take on one of two values, typically represented by a 1 or a 0. In alternative physical realizations of a bit, the bit can be stored in read only memory, random access memory, storage medium, electromagnetic signals. Bits are typically realized in large multiples to represent vast amounts of data. A grouping four bits is called a nibble. Two nibbles form a byte. The byte is of particular importance as most data structures that are larger groupings of bits than one byte are typically made up of multiples of bytes. Two bytes form a 16 BIT structure. Two 16 BIT structures form a 32 BIT structure. Two 32 BIT structures form a 64 BIT structure. An exemplary collection of data types that uses the data representations follows. Data types are abstractions that represent application specific data using either primitive or non-primitive constructs. The most fundamental primitive data type is a Boolean data type, which can be represented using a single bit with the boolean data structure, or more frequently using a boolean data structure that uses a single byte. More complex data types of the primitive data type is a Numeric data type. Three broad examples of the Numeric data type are the Integer data type, the Floating Point data type, and the Character data types. A byte, a short, an int, and a long are examples of Integer Numeric Primitive Data Types using a BYTE, 16 BIT, 16 BIT, 32 BIT and 64 BIT representation respectively. A float and a double are examples of Floating Point Numeric Primitive Data Types and are represented using 32 BIT and 64 BIT representations respectively. Depending on the application, Integer and Floating Point Data Types can be interpreted as signed or unsigned values. In contrast, Character data types represent alphanumeric information. A char8 is represented using a single byte, while a char is represented using a 16 BIT value, such as for example in ASCII or Unicode respectively. Having defined some example Primitive Data Types, it is possible to build up Non-Primitive Data Types by combining Primitive ones, such as for example a String which is a collection of consecutive Character, an Array which is a collection of Primitive, and more generally, a Data Structure which can be a collection of one or more Data Types. Of particular interest are instances of Data Structure that can represent Instructions, Class, and Object. Instructions are data structures that are processed by a given processor to implement a specific method or process. Some Instructions work effectively with corresponding data and are packaged into templates that can be reused, such as code libraries, or as is shown in the drawing in a Class which is a collection of attributes including Data Types and methods including Instructions. A Class can be arranged relative to other Classes in order to provide a Class hierarchy, a linked Data Structure whereby one specific Class is related to one or more other Classes by either “is a” or “has a” relationships. Furthermore, instances of a Class can be instantiated into instances of an Object of that given Class at run time to provide a runtime context for attributes. Thus, it is possible to show the relationship between various Object of specific Class using entity relationship diagrams where each Object or Class is related to others using “is a” and “has a” relationships, and where attributes represent Data Types, and methods represent Instructions. Typically, attributes are shown using a variable name and methods are shown using a function name preceded by a set of parentheses “( )”. Thus, when illustrated in the present drawings, it will be understood that a person of ordinary skill in the art will know how to convert from these conventions into the Data Types and Instructions with are ultimately processed by computing systems.

Having described the environment in which the specific techniques of the present application can operate, application specific aspects will be further described by way of example only. The identification label of the sampling device can contain a unique identifier, or an ID. This could be on a bar code that can be read using a camera of the machine of FIG. 2. The identifier could also be typed into the machine, scanned as a QR code, or identified using bluetooth low energy, or many manner of other such techniques. Once the identifier is within the environment of the machine, software configured on the machine can create, read, update, and delete a data record containing the identifier, and communicate with other machines to provide a system for collecting information that is presently missing regarding aircraft air quality. The data record can include or be a part of a log of events. The data record can include or be related to a protocol for standardized sampling, e.g. showing that a Canadian or US standard was complied with, dependant on jurisdiction and regulations, etc. Any other information, such as weather, altitude, that can be helpful can be included in the data record, such as the registration number, e.g. N number (in USA) and C number (in CA). Two data records can be correlated for example to compare the timing and location of samples at two or more source or sinks to identify what zone that is the source of contaminants. Although sampling has been illustrated at a gasper, it can be accomplished at the cockpit or lavatory or over seat, in the cargo compartment, etc. In a preferred embodiment, the machine can be used to control any number of sampling devices. Thus, the machine could detect an airborne droplet dispersal event, capture a sample, and take other preventative actions, such as for example closing off the air system from where the source of the contaminant has been determined to come from or is heading. For example, by placing a sampling device at a ceiling vent of a cabin, and another at the outflow valve of the cargo compartment, a machine can help isolate the source of the contaminant. Likewise, in a semi automatic configuration, flight attendants could trigger the sampling of during different phases of a flight, or when a an airborne droplet dispersal event is suspected, or a passenger or crew member presents symptoms, for example using a Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or other short range trigger on a smart watch, or cell phone, to cause a sample to be taken. In so doing, since the machines are capable of communicating, an Internet Of Things (IoT) sensor network is created and the resulting data records can be used by the relevant authorities, airline carriers, cabin crews, flight attendants, technicians, cleaning personnel, and the general public to monitor and improve public health by collecting information into a compiled database that can be mined to pre-populate forms for reporting incidents, extrapolate information from data records, suggest maintenance and cleaning of systems that are related to contaminants. In particular, the use of data records linking sampling devices to events, aircraft, maintenance records, and cleaning techniques ensures that overall public health will improve for occupants in aircrafts regardless of the actual sampling device and cleaning techniques being first used: the doctrine of sound prediction can be used to prove that the method results in an evidence based and driven continuous improvement of public health. The following figures illustrate one embodiment of the proposed method.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating steps of a method of sampling to detect biological contaminants of occupant zones in aircraft. The flowchart shows a step of sampling in an aircraft 78 whereby an occupant zone of an aircraft is sampled to produce an sample, followed by a step of providing a data record related to the sample 80 wherein information regarding the sample are included in the provided data record, and a step of cleaning the air ducts of an aircraft 82 using stored data and/or the data record provided that is related to the sampling step. Once the air ducts of an aircraft have been cleaned, other predefined process 84 can take place such as for example storing any information including maps of air ducts that were created during the cleaning step, before and after information, etc.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating the typical life cycle of a data record. The flow chart shows a create data record act 96 whereby a new data record is created, such as for example, when an sample is taken, or when a request that an sample be taken is made, after which the data record is stored; a read data record act 98 whereby stored data is read to obtain a read data record such as for example to check the request that an sample be taken to determine the location of a pre-existing data source to use and in what pressurized zone it is located, an update data record act 100 whereat a given data record is updated to include information that may be required in subsequent work on the aircraft such as work orders for maintaining or cleaning the air ducts, and a delete data record act 102 whereby a data record is removed from stored data and access to information in the data record is no longer available.

Advantageously, the techniques disclosed herein can enable the relevant aviation administration or public health administration to develop a standardized form for flight attendants, pilots, and aircraft maintenance technicians to report incidents of airborne droplet dispersal on board an aircraft operated by a commercial carrier. The content of the form can either be stored in a data record related to the incident if a sample was taken during the incident, or a link to the form can be updated in the data record once the form is filled in. The techniques can establish a system for reporting incidents of airborne droplet dispersal on board aircraft that allows pilots, flight attendants, and aircraft technicians to submit the above mentioned form to the relevant aviation or public health administration, as well as to receive a copy of the form and/or data record for their own records. The established system allows pilots, flight attendants, aircraft maintenance technicians, the collective bargaining representative of employees of the carrier, and commercial air carriers to search the reported incidents database compiled by the relevant aviation or public health authority for the purpose of reviewing and monitoring incidents contained in the database and assisting with investigations. The techniques taught herein can enable any form content to be stored in the data record related to an sample, such as for example, one or more pieces of information for reporting an incident of airborne droplet dispersal on board an aircraft, including sections for the following information, if available at the time of the report, or to be updated in the data record at a subsequent time: identification of the flight, the type of aircraft, the registration number of the aircraft, and the individual reporting the incident; information about the airborne droplet dispersal, if relevant, including a description of the nature and apparent source of the airborne droplet dispersal; information about the airborne droplet dispersal, including a description of the type, apparent source, smell, and visual consistency (if any) of the airborne droplet dispersal; information about the location of the airborne droplet dispersal; information about the phase of flight during which airborne droplet dispersal where present, and if the incident happened while the aircraft was on the ground, the location of the aircraft on the ground, the location of the aircraft at the airport at the time of the incident; other observations about the airborne droplet dispersal; a description of symptoms reported by crew members and passengers; information with respect to whether crew members or passengers used, needed, or were administered supplemental or emergency oxygen; information regarding any effects on the operation of the flight; and information about maintenance work conducted on the aircraft following the incident. What is more, the relevant administrator of the relevant aviation administration or public health authority is enabled to compile, make available to the public statistics regarding the information obtained from the forms related to the data records. The information may be published on a website that includes aggregate data and a searchable database for events reported to the relevant administration, including one or more of the following for each event: date; tail number; air carrier; phase of flight; location of airborne droplet dispersal; description of airborne droplet dispersal; aircraft type; deidentified narrative; cause or maintenance information if cause is not known; and other criteria considered appropriate. The information can be redacted of personally identifiable information before it is made available to the public. Should the relevant aviation administration or public health fail to develop the standardized form and system, advantageously a commercial party is enabled by the present disclosure to do so.

Since other modifications and changes varied to fit particular operating requirements and environments will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the disclosure is not considered limited to the example chosen for purposes of disclosure, and covers all changes and modifications which do not constitute departures from the true spirit and scope of this disclosure.

The embodiments described herein are examples of structures, systems or methods having elements corresponding to elements of the techniques of this application. This written description may enable those skilled in the art to make and use embodiments having alternative elements that likewise correspond to the elements of the techniques of this application. The intended scope of the techniques of this application thus includes other structures, systems or methods that do not differ from the techniques of this application as described herein, and further includes other structures, systems or methods with insubstantial differences from the techniques of this application as described herein.

The above-described embodiments of the present disclosure are intended to be examples only. Those of skill in the art may effect alterations, modifications and variations to the particular embodiments without departing from the scope of the disclosure, which is set forth in the claims.

Claims

1. A method comprising the steps of:

sampling an occupant zone of an aircraft to produce a sample;

providing a data record that is related to the sample; and

making the data record broadly available at least in the event of an outbreak, epidemic, or pandemic involving at least one of the occupants of the occupant zone of the aircraft.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the act of sampling includes the act of using a sampling device thereby providing the sample.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the act of providing a data record related to the sample is related to the act of using the sampling device.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the data record includes identification information.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the identification information includes information identifying the sampling device.

6. The method according to claim 4, wherein the identification information includes information identifying the aircraft.

7. The method according to claim 4, wherein the identification information includes information identifying at least one occupant of the aircraft.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the data record includes time or date information.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the data record includes flight information.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the data record includes a flight number.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the data record includes an airport code.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the data record includes coordinate information.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the data record includes speed information.

14. The method according to claim 1 further including the act of performing an analysis of the quality of the sample.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the data record includes quality information related to the analysis of the quality of sample.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein the quality information includes information about a contaminant.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the information about a contaminant includes information about pathogens.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein the information about pathogens includes information about bacteria.

19. The method according to claim 17, wherein the information about pathogens includes information about fungi.

20. The method according to claim 17, wherein the information about pathogens includes information about viruses.

21. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the act of creating the data record.

22. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the act of reading the data record.

23. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the act of updating the data record.

24. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the act of deleting the data record.

25. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the act of including the data record as part of a set of data records.

26. The method according to claim 25, further comprising the act of extrapolating a second data record from the set of data records.

27. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the act of including the data record as part of the log book of the aircraft.