Integrated Prognostics for Missile Electronics

Ridgetop will work with Raytheon to apply Electronic Prognostics to critical electronic systems in advanced missile systems. The focus will be on latent defects that escape conventional functional test suites. This investigation involves identification of critical components from failure rate analysis, extracting and measuring precursors to failure, and collecting and processing the results into a single composite Electronic Prognostics Indicator. For this SBIR, Ridgetop will create a test board design that can be used for accelerated aging and analysis of induced failures. Additional prognostics will be added to Ridgetop's Prognostic library such as FPGA packaging faults (solder failures) and also connector problems found in missile systems. The test board will be overstressed and cycled in a controlled manner to reveal defects at Raytheon's facilities in Tucson. The resulting signatures will be analyzed and processed to yield the composite latent defect metric.