Experimental and Analytical Development of Health Management for Electro-Mechanical Actuators

Expanded deployment of Electro-Mechanical Actuators (EMAs) in critical applications has created much interest in EMA Prognostic Health Management (PHM), a key enabling technology of Condition Based Maintenance (CBM). As such, Impact Technologies, LLC is collaborating with the NASA Ames Research Center to perform a number of research efforts in support of NASA's Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) initiatives. These efforts have combined experimental test stand development, laboratory seeded fault testing, and physical model-based health monitoring in a comprehensive PHM system development strategy. This paper discusses two closely related EMA research programs being conducted by Impact and NASA Ames. The first of these efforts resulted in the creation of an electro-mechanical actuator test stand for the Prognostics Center of Excellence at the NASA Ames Research Center. The second effort is ongoing and is utilizing physics-based modeling techniques to develop an algorithm and software package toolset for PHM of aircraft EMA systems using a hybrid (virtual sensor) approach.(1,2)