Prognostics and Health Management of Aircraft ... - PHM Society

Prognostics and Health Management of Aircraft Avionics using
Digital Power Converters
J.K. Bhambra 1 , S. Perinpanayagam 2 , C. Taurand 3 and S. Peyrat 4
1,2 IVHM Centre, Cranfield University, United Kingdom
j.bhambra@ cranfield.ac.uk
suresh.nayagam@cranfield.ac.uk
3 THALES Avionics, Valence, France
christophe.taurand@fr.thalesgroup.com
4. THALES Avionics, Toulouse, France
stephanie.peyrat@fr.thalesgroup.com
ABSTRACT
Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) is the study of
predicting deviation or degradation of systems/components
from their normal operational condition. The prognostic
process allows advance time-to-failure warning; reduced unscheduled
maintenance, inspection costs, downtime, and
inventory. Electronic Prognostics and Health Management
has emerged as a key research area for estimating failures
and degradations in the electronic systems.
In the aerospace industry, interest has grown in monitoring
the on-going health of electronic products and systems to
predict failures and provide early warnings for any
catastrophic failures. Switch-mode power supplies form an
integral part of the avionic Line Replaceable Unit (LRU).
Any failure in its operation will cause malfunctioning of the
electronics and the system thereafter.
The aim of the research is to develop a novel prognostic
model for estimating Remaining Useful Life (RUL) of
Aircraft Avionics by
1. Monitoring in-service system behavior for aging and
predicting end-of-life of potential failure components.
2. Transfer-function measurement by injecting a small
sinusoidal perturbation within the closed-loop.
_____________________
Bhambra,J.K. et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
3. Parameter Estimation for understanding drift analysis
of relevant component electrical characteristics,
preparing for end-of-life prognostics
BIOGRAPHIES
Jaspreet Kaur Bhambra received BEng in Electronics and
Communication Engineering from Chitkara Institute of
Engineering and Technology, India in 2007 and MSc degree
in Electronics and Computer Engineering from University
of Birmingham, United Kingdom in 2008. She has worked
for Ericsson Limited as a Hardware Design Engineer. In
2010, she joined IVHM Centre, Cranfield University as a
doctoral researcher working on prognostics and health
management of aircraft avionics.
Suresh Perinpanayagam is a Senior Research Fellow
(Prognostics for Electronics & Motors) at Cranfield
University. He graduated with a Master of Engineering
degree from Imperial College, London in 1996. He first
started work with Ford Product Development Centre in the
UK before pursuing his PhD programme at the Rolls Royce
University Technology Centre at Imperial College, London.
Prior to joining Cranfield, Suresh worked as a Research
Scientist at the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing
Technology (SIMTech), which is an A*STAR (Agency for
Science, Technology and Research) research institute in
Singapore. Suresh was the project leader of a S$ 1 million
project funded by Boeing, EADS and Singapore’s Science
and Engineering Research Council (SERC) under the
auspices of the SERC Aerospace Research Programme.
Suresh’s interests include prognostics research for Avionics
systems, Power Electronics systems, Smart Grids, Electric
Vehicles and Electric Railways.

European Conference of Prognostics and Health Management Society 2012
Christophe Taurand is Power Supply Design Authority in
THALES Avionics. He graduated from Ecole Supérieure
d’Electricité “Supelec” in 1989. He first started in THALES
avionics designing high-accuracy sensors electronics in
1990 and from 1992 moved onto designing high
performance avionics power supplies and power conversion
solutions. Christophe’s interests include power conversion
architectures, power conversion topologies as well as analog
and power electronics, statistical analysis and signal
processing.
Stephanie Peyrat is graduated engineer in physics &
micro- electronics from INSA in 1996 .She joined THALES
in 1999 for consultancy in RAMS domain, and then joined
THALES avionics in 2004. While working for THALES,
she has been participating in a series of R&T projects which
have addressed Health monitoring and management in the
aircraft maintenance industry .She is now coordinating
research on IVHM systems, methods process and tools.
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