Power System Robustness Assessment Tool for All-Electric Aircraft

ABSTRACT: Ridgetop will develop an innovative Robustness Assessment for Design (RAD) tool for aircraft electrical power systems (EPS) to meet system safety, reliability, maintainability, and energy optimization requirements in each design stage by calculating system-level robustness. The design employs flow graph models for components at different hierarchies. The measurement of robustness takes into account the topology of the interconnected components, the degradation of the components from aging, and the environmental effects from field reliability data. In addition, factors associated with the following data are taken into account: X Real field data X Empirical data X Thermal and power data X System weight and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA). The data are measured in multi-level hierarchical systems starting from the component level, and moving to the PWB level, the module level, up to the system level. The models can be connected in series, in parallel, and in combinations of both to conduct extensive Swhat-if analyses that optimize the design for overall system robustness improvement. The result of this SBIR program is a more accurate and modern alternative that maximizes system effectiveness, provides a reduction of energy consumption, and increases system robustness through more accurate estimates than those using conventional mean time between failures (MTBF)-type reliability calculations. BENEFIT: The anticipated benefits that Ridgetops technology offers are electrical power systems lifecycle improvement and continue level of performance in environment variations while optimizing energy. The main markets that will benefit from Ridgetops technology are the commercial aircraft, commercial aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), and potentially the automotive markets. In the military industry, the markets that will be benefited from this technology are the aerospace and defense and the unmanned aerial vehicles markets. This tool supports the demands for more reliable, robust, and energy optimized designs of electrical power systems. The competitive advantage of this technology over other electronic design automation (EDA) tools available in the market is its ability to provide more accurate estimates of systems-levels robustness over conventional mean time between failures (MTBF)-types of reliability calculations, which are largely based on parts population methods. Higher reliability, increased robustness for a variety of platforms, and energy efficiencies are the principal benefits that this tool offers.