An On-line Monitoring and Data Analysis Process for Aircraft Bus Failure Forecasting and Health Management

"Qualtech Systems, Inc. (QSI) proposes to research the feasibility of implementing an active testing and analysis system for aircraft buses by considering both the architectural/implementation issues as well as the data monitoring and analysis techniquesrequired for characterizing bus faults and forecasting failures as a function of degradation in bus performance. QSI will utilize its experience in developing integrated diagnostics solutions and will leverage work it has performed as part of amulti-company wiring integrity program for aging aircraft. In order to strengthen the research team developing fault models of aircraft buses, QSI will collaborate with Lectromec for expertise in characterization and isolation of wiring faults. In PhaseI, we will survey existing bus monitoring systems, maintenance data sources, and troubleshooting procedures, and investigate the mechanisms behind the manifestation of various bus faults as communication errors. We will research statistical/learningmodels that can aid in identifying current bus failures and forecasting impending failures, and, in particular, explore the applicability of a novel approach to prognostics based on statistical analysis of discrete health data. Finally, towards developingpreliminary specifications for Phase II development, we will study alternative hardware configurations for embedding the new analysis software. The proposed solution is expected to benefit the overall