Patent ID: 11913643
Assignee: RTX CORPORATION
Field: Engines, pumps, turbines (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC F  G  H  Y | IPC F  G  H

Claim 12:
13. A gas turbine engine of an aircraft, the gas turbine engine comprising:
a fan section comprising a fan case;
an engine control mounted on the fan case, the engine control configured to monitor and control operation of the gas turbine engine in real-time;
a communication adapter mounted on the fan case;
an engine core;
an engine core cowl and a fan core cowl that define a volume in which an engine fan stream is configured to flow from the fan section external of the engine core;
a plurality of wireless sensors distributed within the engine core;
an energy harvesting system comprising one or more energy harvesting devices configured to convert mechanical or thermal energy within the gas turbine engine into electric power and provide the electric power to the wireless sensors;
a data concentrator configured to receive a plurality of wireless sensor data from the wireless sensors and transmit the wireless sensor data to the communication adapter, wherein the data concentrator is mounted on the engine core cowl and to communicate wirelessly with an offboard system using a different frequency spectrum than the data concentrator and the wireless sensors; and
the communication adapter is configured to:
form an enhanced data set based on the wireless sensor data, a plurality of internal sensor data of the communication adapter, and a plurality of engine control parameters from the engine control of the gas turbine engine;
transmit the enhanced data set to the offboard system; and
transmit the enhanced data set to the engine control of the engine over a wired connection.