Digital System e-Prognostics for Critical Aircraft Computer Systems

Impact Technologies, in cooperation with Raytheon, proposes to develop and demonstrate an innovative prognostics approach for aircraft digital electronics. The proposed non-invasive prognostic approach consists of advanced software and a minimal sensing, focused on incipient fault detection, isolating failure modes and predicting remaining useful life using improved prognostic models. The innovations will include development and validation of physics of failure models, applicable to a broad range of CMOS digital systems; associated damage accumulation models; and a signal processing and feature extraction approach for detecting and isolating VLSI failure modes. In this approach, cradle-to-grave health state awareness is achieved through the use of model-based assessments in the absence of fault indications, and by updating these model-based assessments with sensed information. The PowerPC MPC7447 microprocessor will be used for validation testing during this program based on its use in such systems as the F-35 fighter Integrated Core Processor (ICP) and the fact that it is representative of the wide spread CMOS technology found in modern digital devices. Finally, a commercialization path beginning with testing of the technologies within Raytheon's Labs will be presented along with the team's vision of how e-Prognostic technologies can be transitioned into safety critical commercial and military digital.