The proposed innovation has strong potential in the commercial aerospace market. Today's commercial operators are plagued by ever increasing operating and maintenance costs while facing tighter safety restrictions by the FAA. The EMA PHM innovation can be used as a dynamic utility to monitor an array of critical systems accurately, remotely, and non-invasively, thus eliminating the need for tedious line and system inspections which are performed routinely. The savings realized on the part of aircraft operators will be in the form of countless labor hours and parts while the value will be realized in operators having full system health visibility and resulting improved safety of passengers and crew. The proposed EMA PHM unit will also directly benefit the emerging hybrid vehicle market which comprises roughly 3% of the total automotive market . This market is particularly in need of this solution as its electronic actuator and power systems are critical. As such, the proposed technology will enable auto manufacturers and service centers to more accurately monitor critical component health data in real time, thus minimizing the risk of in-field failure. Ridgetop plans to integrate the proposed technology to add-value to existing on-board diagnostic platforms with consolidated sensor network and advanced reporting/data capabilities.
The RingDown technologies developed under this SBIR are applicable to electromechanical actuators and power systems across all of NASA's programs. The benefits of this prognostic health management solution will be reduced maintenance costs, reduced downtime, and improved reliability for critical EMA systems. Under this SBIR program, Ridgetop intends to continue its close collaboration with the Ames Research Center to prepare and position this technology for insertion into NASA's Constellation program. Ridgetop is also partnering with Qualtech Systems, Inc. (QSI) to integrate these technologies into their TEAMS diagnostics software suite. This will ensure that these technologies are available in the baseline diagnostic tool for the Ares and Orion programs.
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