Prognostics Approaches for Remote Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Propulsion and Vehicle Systems in Harsh Environments

This is a follow-on SBIR Phase II as a result of a fully executed SBIR Technology Transition Plan to transition MSI’s COgnitive Stochastic MOdeling System (COSMOS) in a microsystem hardware to increase reliability of systems and components which would reduce maintenance and increase operational availability, which reduces the number of aircraft needed to complete missions. ACC and the AFRL propulsion division desire a new prognostic health management (PHM) approach that applies advanced cognitive diagnostic and prognostic algorithms to systems and components of vehicles operated under harsh or off-design conditions typical of military platforms. In Phase II of the SBIR to AF121-170, MSI developed, prototyped, and demonstrated a prototype PHM system that can provide accurate prognosis of propulsion system health and, as much as possible, preempt loss of control, in-flight shutdowns, and cut down on false removals and maintenance time caused by inadequate information from the aircraft. The demonstration included real time data collection, signal conditioning, cognitive Bayesian processing, offload via Ethernet, and probabilistic decision support information for maintenance troubleshooting assists. During the demonstration, simulated missions were seeded with faults that are typical of hard-to-isolate problems experienced in propulsion systems. COSMOS successfully identified the seeded faults.