Aircraft door camera system for evacuation slide deployment monitoring

A method of monitoring an external environment of an aircraft, the method comprising:

• receiving, with a processor, image data captured by a camera disposed within an aircraft door of the aircraft such that an evacuation slide deployment path is within a field of view of the camera;
• analyzing, with the processor, the captured image data by:
• identifying a first region of pixel coordinates within the captured image data that correspond to the evacuation slide deployment path;
• determining whether the evacuation slide deployment path will generate a failed deployment outcome;
• and
• producing a warning associated with the evacuation slide deployment path in response to determining that the evacuation slide deployment path will generate the failed deployment outcome;
• accessing pixel coordinates of captured image data associated with the evacuation slide deployment path;
• causing a computer-readable memory to store the pixel coordinates corresponding to the evacuation slide deployment path;
• comparing the pixel coordinates corresponding to an evacuation slide during operation in a baseline state with the pixel coordinates corresponding to the evacuation slide deployment path;
• and
• outputting the captured image data for display at a display device disposed within an interior of the aircraft.

A system for monitoring an external environment of an aircraft, the system comprising:

• a plurality of aircraft doors;
• a plurality of cameras, at least one camera of the plurality of cameras being disposed within one of the plurality of aircraft doors and each camera of the plurality of cameras having a field of view that is unique among the plurality of cameras, such that an evacuation slide deployment path is within the field of view of at least one camera;
• a display device disposed within an interior of the aircraft;
• and
• a processor operatively coupled to the camera and to the display device to:
• receive, from each respective camera of the plurality of cameras, image data captured by the respective camera that is representative of the external environment of the aircraft within the field of view of the respective camera;
• aggregate the captured image data received from each camera of the plurality of cameras to produce aggregated image data representative of the external environment of the aircraft, wherein image data from overlapping fields of view of the plurality of cameras is presented only once in the aggregated image data with elimination of duplicative elements;
• analyze the aggregated image data by:
• identifying a first region of pixel coordinates within the aggregated image data that correspond to the evacuation slide deployment path;
• identifying a second region of pixel coordinates within the aggregated image data that corresponds to an object separate from the aircraft;
• determining whether the second region of pixel coordinates within the aggregated image data that corresponds to the object separate from the aircraft obstructs the evacuation slide deployment path;
• accessing pixel coordinates of captured image data from any of the plurality of cameras associated with the evacuation slide deployment path;
• causing a computer-readable memory to store the first region of pixel coordinates corresponding to the evacuation slide deployment path;
• comparing the pixel coordinates corresponding to an evacuation slide during operation in a baseline state with the first region of pixel coordinates corresponding to the evacuation slide deployment path;
• producing a warning associated with the evacuation slide deployment path in response to determining that the second region of pixel coordinates within the captured image data that corresponds to the object separate from the aircraft obstructs the evacuation slide deployment path;
• and
• output the aggregated image data for display at the display device, such that the displayed image data includes image data from overlapping fields of view only once.