NASA's current vision to enhance the level of autonomy for vehicle health management and mission planning makes the proposed effort worthy of funding from several branches within it. The proposed technology, aimed at increasing operational uptime through the use of predictive CBM techniques, and the software tool for supporting its implementation will allow NASA to better plan and execute future Science Missions. The technology can be leveraged to support safety in complex systems, such as NASA's long-duration missions in space science and exploration. This technology can also be applied to autonomous and hybrid/ full electric systems with a vertical lift capability designed for a variety of civil missions. It is envisioned that the technology will also be able to readily operate as part of NASA's next generation Mission Control Technology allowing NASA to utilize the continuous health assessment and mission satisfiability information from the tool for improved mission execution while improving safety, mission success probability and the overall operational uptime of the VL Vehicle.
Among the other agencies FAA's NextGen program is the most obvious commercialization target for this technology. We envisage the proposed technology to be of significant interest for to DoD Future Lift Vehicle (FVL) program and being network-ready with support for modern web technologies can readily be available as part of the NextGen System Wide Information Management (SWIM) technologies. Apart from the FAA, US Air Force, US Navy, and commercial aviation (e.g., Boeing, Airbus) are the potential customers for the resulting technology. The development of the various interacting technology components for PHM enabled CBM can be easily directed towards mission assurance and will be of direct interest to large scale military systems (systems of systems) such as NORAD, Space Command ground segments, the Joint Strike Fighter fleet, the Navy shipboard platforms, Submarine Commands and ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems. In addition, UAVs, UMGs and other unmanned submersible vehicle markets are potential targets as well. QSI expects to leverage its relationship with manufacturers of these systems, such as the Lockheed Martin's K-MAX (unmanned cargo helicopter) for which QSI is involved in providing a PHM solution for commercialization of the proposed technology. The product is also expected to be of commercial value to the manufacturers of DoD and military's remotely guided weapons and reconnaissance systems.
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