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The Sensory Prognostics and Management Systems (SPMS) program sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing developed and evaluated designs to integrate advanced diagnostic and prognostic (i.e., Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) or Health Management (HM)) capabilities onto commercial airplanes. The objective of the program was to propose an advanced HM system appropriate for legacy and new aircraft and examine the technical requirements and their ramifications on the current infrastructure and regulatory guidance. The program approach was to determine the attractive and feasible HM applications, the technologies that are required to cost effectively implement these applications, the technical and certification challenges, and the system level and business consequences of such a system.

This paper describes a framework for developing an Integrated Electrical Power System (EPS) Health Management System. The framework is based on the perspective that health management, unlike other capabilities, is not a self-contained, stand-alone system, but is rather an integral part of every aircraft subsystem, system, and the entire platform. Ultimately, the objective is to improve the entire maintenance, logistics and fleet operations support processes. This perspective requires a new mindset when applying systems engineering design principles. The paper provides an overview description of the framework, the potential benefits of the approach and some critical design and implementation issues based on current development efforts.

Military and commercial aircraft and ground vehicles are increasingly dependent on electrical power. New military, commercial and space vehicles rely on electrical power in whole or in part for such flight critical systems such as flight control and fuel. Digitally controlled power distribution systems as well as the digital controllers within these systems provide an unprecedented, affordable and inherent opportunity to monitor electrically powered vehicle systems health. This digital data provides component operating signatures to the system, thereby enabling advanced diagnostic and prognostic capabilities. These capabilities can be leveraged to ensure a high mission reliability rate as well as reduce life cycle ownership costs.