A Noninvasive Sensor/Control Suite for Health Monitoring and Extended Life of Aircraft Generation Systems

Catastrophic failures in aircraft electrical power systems can compromise the readiness, safety, and capabilities of the war-fighter. In this effort, a suite of tools will be developed to provide a comprehensive prognostics and health management system (PHM) for aircraft generators and associated electrical systems. The PHM will be based upon a set of recently developed tools that include a novel sensor to measure torque-ripple-induced vibration created by electric machinery, a thermal condition monitor that can predict the temperatures within an electric machine under healthy and damaged operation, and numerical simulation tools that enable rapid development and solution of component and system-level models of electric machinery and power electronic systems operated in fault conditions. Validation of the PHM concepts and the computer simulations used will be performed with hardware using an F-18 generator as the test platform.BENEFITS: Development and implementation of a comprehensive prognostics and health management (PHM) system for aircraft generators and associated electrical systems for the F-18. To include prediction of pending failures. Provide feedback-based control strategies to mitigate component degradation or failures. This could result in reduced maintenance cost and mean time between failures. PHM system can be extended fleet-wide and to automotive electrical systems, commercial aircraft, ships, and submarines.