Lockheed Martin is to test predictive-maintenance technology planned for its Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) under a $6.5 million prognostics and health-management (PHM) demonstration contract.
The company will demonstrate a proof-of-concept prototype of the PHM subsystem planned for its production JSF, while Boeing is negotiating a similar contract to demonstrate prognostics technology for its competing design.
The PHM subsystem will process and store information from on-board sensors, monitoring trends and comparing them with test results so that degradation can be detected well before a failure occurs, and before other systems are affected. Health data will be displayed to the pilot in flight, and datalinked to the maintenance organisation with required actions.
Self-monitoring could eventually replace routine maintenance inspections on both military and civil aircraft, and promises large savings in support costs. British Airways is working with prognostics, or "case-based reasoning", for the Rolls-Royce Olympus 593 engines which power its Aerospatiale/BAC Concordes, while MTU Munich has developed predictive routines for the control system on the Eurofighter EF2000's Eurojet EJ200 engine.
The JSF programme promises to take the concept a stage further, with all the aircraft's subsystems being monitored and far more information being available from a proliferation of miniature sensors.
The PHM subsystem will "serve as a smart distributor of how, when and in what format to provide information to the maintainer and make decisions on necessary parts replacement and the ability of the aircraft to fly certain missions", says Lon Heldenbrand, PHM-demonstration programme manager at Lockheed Martin.
A proof-of-concept prototype is scheduled to be demonstrated by September 2000, and Lockheed Martin will incorporate the PHM subsystem in its proposal for JSF engineering and manufacturing development, which is scheduled to begin in 2001.
Source: Flight International
