Continuous Power Assurance for Rotorcraft

Impact Technologies LLC, with Honeywell Aerospace as an industry partner, proposes to develop and demonstrate innovative enhancements to existing power assurance methods for the T55-714A engine. The development team will build off the proven success of the Phase I SBIR and Aviation Diagnostic and Engine Prognostic (ADEPT) programs with the goal of prototyping automated and accurate continuous engine power assessment technologies that promise to reduce the incidence of unplanned engine removals due to low power, eliminate pilot burden and human error, and significantly reduce the threat to aircraft and crew for Power Assurance Check (PAC) when new engines or major engine repair has been performed. Specifically, parametric filtering, regime recognition and extrapolation routines enabling automated power assurance tests will be improved and evaluated against data acquired in dedicated T-55 engine tests and through additional Honeywell provided service data. Results will be utilized to significantly mature a Continuous Power Assurance Test (CPAT) module. Software development best practices will be employed to capture and help implement requirements needed to fully realize a practical CPAT system for the Chinooks T-55, and will evaluate limitations or modifications required for a future embedded CPAT solution on the T-55 and other relevant engine platforms. Finally, a ground-based performance prognostic module will be developed to forecast the remaining engine performance life and support condition based maintenance decisions, given the CPAT module results. A demonstration test flight near the program completion is proposed to prove out TRL 7 maturity of the CPAT module installed on a MSD laptop with a serial port connection to the T55 engine controller.