Diagnotisc System for Antenna Drive Motors and Bearings

The proposed effort will evalute acoustic sensing methods to monitor and diagnose impending problems in drive components on the ALTAIR Spacetrack antenna. Various acoustic sensing techniques that have been researched but never applied to such a structure will be investigated. The problem of using acoustic measurement techniques is that most of the data expected from an ALTAIR or similar system is of sporadic and nonsteady state which makes the interpretation of the data difficult. Recent developments in wavelet and time-frequency algorithms will be considered as a potential solution for deriving useful data from the short-interval bursts of data the antenna produces as it tracks targets in space. Where data intervals are long enough, standard FFT analyses will be used. In determiing an effective diagnostic system, reasonable installation and maintenance costs will be emphasized, and disruption to the ALTAIR facility during installation will be minimized. The microphone approach, to which ALTAIR appears to be well suited, will be investigated and compared to the more traditional approach of installed sensors and cabling.