ePHM System Development, Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing, Fault Tree, and FMECA Applied to and Integrated on NASA Hybrid Electric Testbeds

Phase II will, at minimum: validate the specific HEDP model from Phase I and develop additional specific HEDP and TeDP models from the qualitative considerations from Phase I. This includes detailed piece part FMECA to validate the functional FMECA from Phase I upon which the models are based for the AirVolt and HEIST capabilities. The ePHM provides NASA an immediate testing and reliability capability for HEDP aircraft in conjunction with the separate Phase III HEIST and AirVolt efforts with NASA Dryden. This capability can be established beyond Dryden's efforts at the conclusion of the proposed Phase II, for independent technologies being developed at Glenn or systems at Langley. This capability, when implemented, will help NASA and all participating parties create the performance, safety, reliability, maintainability and self-repairing requirements for all of the required future technologies. Integrating PHM now will help NASA introduce electric aircraft with "supercontrollers" which are safer, more reliable, and as capable as those flying today. The PHM system can manage the health of all of the subsystems and disciplines, providing actionable data to air vehicle controller to increase safety and reliability and even make decisions on maintenance.

As mentioned, the team is in a unique position as General Atomics has developed RPA and other large PHM systems and their sister company, GA-ASI, manufactures RPA payloads and a major RPA asset (MQ-9 Reaper). Most of the considerations outlined above for NASA also apply to the Air Force Research Labs. The ePHM system immediately developed and implemented during Phase II can be modified for direct use on AFRL's testing assets with very little investment. For these same reasons, AFRL becomes another potential partner to contribute to the Phase III activities. GA plans to market this health monitoring platform and solution as an addition to existing defense programs that are already underway at GA. GA plans to market the final product to the commercial and defense market. An immediate customer for the proposed ePHM product is Navy UCLASS UAV, Air Force MQ-9 UAV and Army MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAV. GA's business network in the area of nuclear power generation will also benefit from the capabilities of ePHM technology. GA is interested in partnering with ESAero and NASA Dryden in this program for the purposes of enhancing the safety and performance of the hybrid-electric propulsion technology. The results of this work are applicable to any systems with distributed energy architectures, including aircraft, locomotives, mining trucks, cars or other vehicles, electrical distribution networks, commodity management (cement plants, etc.), oil & gas extraction and distribution, etc.