INTELLIGENT HEALTH MONITORING SYSTEM (IHMS) FOR TURBOMACHINERY FAILURE PREDICTION AND PREVENTION.

AI SIGNAL RESEARCH, INC. (AISRI) PROPOSES TO DEVELOP A COMPLETE INTELLIGENT HEALTH MONITORING SYSTEM (IHMS) WHICH PROVIDES LOW-COST ON-LINE MONITORING AND DIAGNOSTIC SERVICES FOR TURBOMACHINERY. OUR APPROACH USES OUR PROVEN INNOVATIVE DIAGNOSTIC SIGNAL ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES WHICH WE DEVELOPED DURING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE MAIN ENGINE (SSME) COUPLED WITH AN EXPERT SYSTEM FOR UNSUPERVISED PROCESSING. THE IHMS SYSTEM WILL MONITOR DYNAMIC SIGNALS FROM CRITICAL MEASUREMENT LOCATIONS WHILE PERFORMING AUTOMATIC DATA REDUCTION, ARCHIVING, AND TRENDS/SIMILARITY ANALYSIS FOR ANOMALY DETECTION BASED ON ITS ACQUIRED KNOWLEDGE BASE. THE MAJOR ADVANTAGE OF THE PROPOSED IHMS IS THAT WHEN A POSSIBLE DEFECT SIGNATURE IS DETECTED, BEFORE ISSUING A WARNING TO OPERATOR PERSONNEL, OUR ANOMALY UNDERSTANDING (AU) SUBSYSTEM WILL PERFORM AN IN-DEPTH VERIFICATION PROCESS OF THE ANOMALY USING A HIERARCHY OF AUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SIGNAL ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES. THIS AU SUBSYSTEM WILL GREATLY REDUCE THE MIS-INTERPRETATION/FALSE-ALARM RATE, AND IMPROVE SYSTEM RELIABILITY. THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROPOSED SBIR STUDY WILL BE TO BUILD A PROTOTYPE HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE SYSTEM FOR DEMONSTRATION BY THE END OF PHASE II AND A COMMERCIAL SYSTEM FOR INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION IN PHASE III.