RF Emission-Based Health Monitoring for Hybrid and/or All Electric Aircraft Distributed Propulsion S

Future aircraft propulsion is destined to be electric. All electric aircraft propulsion systems promise significant improvements in energy efficiency, maneuverability, safety, reliability, reduced maintenance costs, noise reduction, higher lift, shorter takeoff, and other factors. NASA's LEAPtech technology is the major departure from the current state-of-art aircraft vehicle/engine design, possibly enabling unprecedented performance and design flexibility...and [can] maximize total vehicle performance. This offers new opportunities to monitor aircraft propulsion components, on the ground or continuously in-flight. Nokomis has developed and installed a system for testing electronic components for Air Force procurement and maintenance spanning non-contact measurement of electronic part degradation, part aging and predicting onset of part failure. We propose a system whereby Electromechanical Health and Remaining Useful Life (RUL) can be determined real-time in-flight using motor's unintended Radio Frequency emissions, making flight testing such aircraft safer, and detecting dangerous conditions before they materialize.