The authors have formulated a Comprehensive Systems Engineering approach to Electro-Mechanical Actuator (EMA) Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) system development. The approach implements software tools to integrate simulation-based design principles and dynamic failure mode and effects analysis. It also provides automated failure mode insertion and propagation analysis, PHM algorithm design and verification, full dynamic simulations, code generation, and validation testing. This process aims to produce the appropriate fault detection and prediction algorithms needed for successful development of an EMA PHM system.

As an initial use case, the developed approach was implemented to develop and validate a model-based, virtual sensor software package for landing gear EMA PHM. This effort included creation of a dynamic, component-level system model that can be used to virtually sense parameters, detect degradation, isolate probable root cause, and assess severity. This model is also used as a virtual test bed for performing fault insertion analysis to address algorithm development and experimental prioritization. The developed model was validated using data from a test stand, which was specifically constructed for EMA PHM development. The model-based predictor was then coupled with failure mode diagnostics, advanced knowledge fusion, and failure mode progression algorithms to form a complete prototype EMA PHM solution.

Reproduced by kind permission of MFPT (www.mfpt.org).