Prognostics and Health Management

6Design: Robust Prototype of an Exemplary PHM System

6.1 PHM System: Review

The design and development of a system to support prognostics and health management/monitoring (PHM) is complex, and there are many approaches to do so. Even though each such system (with the possible exception of demonstrations, test beds, and experiments) is unique, there are important design considerations. For example, (i) whether to use node‐based, assembly‐based, or some other architecture to sample and acquire data from nodes; (ii) data‐handling requirements, such as conditioning, transforming, and fusing; (iii) resolution, precision, and accuracy requirements for predicting information; and (iv) checkpoint/restart (stop and resume operations). A robust PHM system needs to address these issues.

For illustrative purposes, this chapter is written directly to you, the reader, in the role of a lead design engineer of prognostic solutions who has been chosen to lead the design and development of a robust prototype PHM system. That system is to serve as a proof of feasibility for a customer and as a demonstration of the capabilities and expertise you and your team possess. This chapter is based on historical and case‐study data.

Before introducing new issues and solutions, we will review all of the previous chapters, because you will need to appropriately select, adapt, and apply other approaches; a large number (but not all) of these have already been presented in this book.

6.1.1 Chapter 1: Introduction ...