Granted Patent B2

US 12,571,740 · App. 18/105,299 · Granted Mar 10, 2026

Inventors: Jeremiah C. Lee (Coventry, CT); Paul Attridge (Colchester, CT); Zaffir A. Chaudhry (South Glastonbury, CT); Scott Goyette (Moosup, CT); Gregory S. Hagen (Glastonbury, CT); David L. Lincoln (Cromwell, CT); Kin Gwn Lore (Belmont, MA)

Assignee: RTX Corporation

G01N21/9515G01N21/8851G06F18/2135G06T7/0004G01N2021/1765G01N2021/8861G01N2021/8887G06T2207/20081G06T2207/20084

Abstract

Claims (21)

1 . A method of inspecting fan blades of a gas turbine engine for abnormalities, comprising:

obtaining, by one or more processors of a computing device, a set of one or more first photographic images that depict at least one first fan blade of one or more first gas turbine engines, the set of one or more first photographic images having initial dimensions corresponding to attributes of pixels of the one or more first photographic images, and the computing device comprising at least the one or more processors, a memory element, and a communication interface;

utilizing, by the one or more processors, a dimensional reduction technique on the set of one or more first photographic images to obtain a set of basis vectors for representing the set of first photographic images in a reduced dimensional space that is reduced with respect to the initial dimensions, wherein the dimensional reduction technique is Principal Component Analysis (PCA);

obtaining, by the one or more processors from at least one camera, a second photographic image that is not part of the set and that depicts at least one second fan blade of a second gas turbine engine, the at least one camera being situated within a nacelle of the second gas turbine engine, and the one or more processors being communicatively coupled to the at least one camera via a communication interface of the computing device;

utilizing the set of basis vectors to obtain a reconstructed version of the second photographic image that reconstructs the second photographic image in the reduced dimensional space;

based on a difference between the second photographic image and the reconstructed version of the second photographic image exceeding a predefined difference threshold, determining, by the one or more processors, that the at least one second fan blade of the second gas turbine includes an abnormality and

providing a blade abnormality notification, by the one or more processors, the blade abnormality notification comprising at least one of: logging the abnormality in the memory element, providing a visible notification, and providing an audible notification.

2 . The method of claim 1 , comprising, prior to said utilizing a dimensional reduction technique to obtain the set of basis vectors:

dividing at least one of the one or more first photographic images in the set into a plurality of patches that represent areas of the one of more first images;

wherein said utilizing the dimensional reduction technique on the set of one or more first photographic images comprises utilizing the dimensional reduction technique on the plurality of patches; and

wherein the basis vectors correspond to features common to all of the patches from the one or more first photographic images.

3 . The method of claim 1 , comprising:

modifying portions of at least one of the one or more first photographic images by using one or more of the following techniques: scaling, cropping, rotating, gamma correction, and contrast adjustment; and

wherein said utilizing a dimensional reduction technique on the set of one or more first images is performed on an augmented set of the first photographic images that includes the modified portions.

4 . The method of claim 1 , comprising:

modifying portions of at least one of the one or more first photographic images by adding blurring to said portions; and

wherein said utilizing a dimensional reduction technique on the set of one or more first images is performed on an augmented set of the first photographic images that includes the modified portions.

5 . The method of claim 1 , comprising:

modifying portions of at least one of the one or more first photographic images by modifying a brightness of said portions to simulate lighting conditions that differ from those of said at least one of the one or more first photographic images; and

wherein said utilizing a dimensional reduction technique on the set of one or more first images is performed on an augmented set of the first photographic images that includes the modified portions.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein none of said one or more first photographic images includes the abnormality.

Assignments (2)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (15)