Embedded Prognostics Health Monitoring

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has conducted R&D for the US Army on prognostics health monitoring (PHM). The main focus of the work was to demonstrate the feasibility of developing an onboard PHM system for the gas turbine engine used on the M1 Abrams tank. Research was performed on methods for real time, onboard prognostics/engine life expectancy forecasting, and a prototype system was designed, developed, and installed on several test tanks. The purpose of this presentation is to review the approaches to PHM employed in this research, to provide an overview of the PHM prototype and results obtained to date with data collected in the field, and to describe current work aimed at developing a PHM capability for diesel engines. INTRODUCTION Prognostics is the process of predicting the future state of a system. Prognostics systems comprise sensors, a data acquisition system, and microprocessor-based software to perform sensor fusion, analysis, and reporting/interpreting of results with little or no human intervention, in real time or near real time. The US Army intends to make extensive use of prognostics technology on weapons platforms, support vehicles and even munitions. With technical assistance from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the US Army Logistics Integration Agency (USALIA) has been assessing the state-of-the-art in prognostics technology, extending the capabilities of the technology, and examining implementation approaches to provide maximum benefit to the Army from prognostics data. PNNL has investigated prognostics applications for several US Army vehicles, performed research on methods for real time, onboard prognostics/engine life expectancy forecasting, and developed a feasibility demonstration prototype onboard Prognostics Health Monitoring (PHM) system for the gas turbine engine used on the M1 Abrams tank. The purpose of this paper is to review the