A cost driven predictive maintenance policy for structural airframe maintenance

Airframe maintenance is traditionally performed at scheduled maintenance stops.The decision to repair a fuselage panel is based on a fixed crack size threshold,which allows to ensure the aircraft safety until the next scheduled maintenance stop.With progress in sensor technology and data processing techniques,structural health monitoring (SHM) systems are increasingly being considered in the aviation industry.SHM systems track the aircraft health state continuously,lead ing to the possibility of planning maintenance based on an actual state of aircraft rather than on a fixed schedule.This paper builds upon a model-based prognostics framework that the authors developed in their previous work,which couples the Extended Kalman filter (EKF) with a first order perturbation (FOP) method.By using the information given by this prognostics method,a novel cost driven predictive maintenance (CDPM) policy is proposed,which ensures the aircraft safety while minimizing the maintenance cost.The proposed policy is formally derived based on the trade-off between probabilities of occurrence of scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.A numerical case study simulating the maintenance process of an entire fleet of aircrafts is imple mented.Under the condition of assuring the same safety level,the CDPM is compared in terms of cost with two other maintenance policies:scheduled maintenance and threshold based SHM maintenance.The comparison results show CDPM could lead to significant cost savings.     

A Gaussian Mixture PHD Filter for Jump Markov System Models

The probability hypothesis density (PHD) filter is an attractive approach to tracking an unknown and time-varying number of targets in the presence of data association uncertainty, clutter, noise, and detection uncertainty. The PHD filter admits a closed-form solution for a linear Gaussian multi-target model. However, this model is not general enough to accommodate maneuvering targets that switch between several models. In this paper, we generalize the notion of linear jump Markov systems to the multiple target case to accommodate births, deaths, and switching dynamics. We then derive a closed-form solution to the PHD recursion for the proposed linear Gaussian jump Markov multi-target model. Based on this an efficient method for tracking multiple maneuvering targets that switch between a set of linear Gaussian models is developed. An analytic implementation of the PHD filter using statistical linear regression technique is also proposed for targets that switch between a set of nonlinear models. We demonstrate through simulations that the proposed PHD filters are effective in tracking multiple maneuvering targets.     

Amorphous Silicon Electronic Devices and their Applications

Hydrogenated amorphous Si (a-Si:H) devices first made a significant impact in photovoltaic application, 70% of the photovoltaic solar cells produced in Japan in 1984 were a-Si:H. More recently, thin film transistor (TFT) and sensor devices have been developed for consumer and business products. The ability to produce large area uniform films of a-Si:H makes the application of TFTs and sensors well suited for input and output imaging devices such as image scanners, display and printers. This paper reviews the operation, material issues and physics of a-Si:H TFTs and sensors. The circuit and technology issues in large area systems incorporating these devices are described.     

Analysis of gravity-wave induced instabilities and turbulence viscosity parameters from optical emissions

The effects of gravity waves on OH and 5577 0I emissions have been used to investigate (1) the possible production of “secondary” waves or “ripples” by a “primary” wave; (2) the possible application of such observed optical emissions for computing atmospheric parameters such as turbulence viscosity in the mesospheric regions.     

CREAM: 70 days of flight from 2 launches in Antarctica

The Cosmic-Ray Energetics And Mass balloon-borne experiment has been launched twice in Antarctica, first in December 2004 and again in December 2005. It circumnavigated the South Pole three times during the first flight, which set a flight duration record of 42 days. A cumulative duration of 70 days within 13 months was achieved when the second flight completed 28 days during two circumnavigations of the Pole on 13 January 2006. Both the science instrument and support systems functioned extremely well, and a total 117 GB of data including 67 million science events were collected during these two flights. Preliminary analysis indicates that the data extend well above 100 TeV and follow reasonable power laws. The payload recovered from the first flight has been refurbished for the third flight in 2007, whereas the payload from the second flight is being refurbished to be ready for the fourth flight in 2008. Each flight will extend the reach of precise cosmic-ray composition measurements to energies not previously possible.     

Evaluation on real-time dynamic performance of BDS in PPP,RTK, and INS tightly aided modes

Since China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system (BDS) began to provide regional navigation service for Asia-Pacific region after 2012, more new generation BDS satellites have been launched to further expand BDS’s coverage to be global. In this contribution, precise positioning models based on BDS and the corresponding mathematical algorithms are presented in detail. Then, an evaluation on BDS’s real-time dynamic positioning and navigation performance is presented in Precise Point Positioning (PPP), Real-time Kinematic (RTK), Inertial Navigation System (INS) tightly aided PPP and RTK modes by processing a set of land-borne vehicle experiment data. Results indicate that BDS positioning Root Mean Square (RMS) in north, east, and vertical components are 2.0, 2.7, and 7.6?cm in RTK mode and 7.8, 14.7, and 24.8?cm in PPP mode, which are close to GPS positioning accuracy. Meanwhile, with the help of INS, about 38.8%, 67.5%, and 66.5% improvements can be obtained by using PPP/INS tight-integration mode. Such enhancements in RTK/INS tight-integration mode are 14.1%, 34.0%, and 41.9%. Moreover, the accuracy of velocimetry and attitude determination can be improved to be better than 1?cm/s and 0.1°, respectively. Besides, the continuity and reliability of BDS in both PPP and RTK modes can also be ameliorated significantly by INS during satellite signal missing periods.     

Preliminary results from the second flight of CREAM

Launched from McMurdo (Antarctica) in December 2005, the balloon experiment CREAM (cosmic ray energetics and mass) collected about 15 million triggers during its second flight of 28 days. Redundant charge identification, by two pixelated silicon arrays and a time resolved pulse shaping technique from a scintillator system, allowed a clear signature of the primary nuclei. The energy was measured with a tungsten/SciFi calorimeter preceded by a graphite target. Preliminary results from the analysis of the data of the second flight are presented.     

QFT force loop design for the aerodynamic load simulator

A dynamic load simulator which can reproduce on-ground the aerodynamic hinge moment of a control surface is an essential rig for conducting performance and stability tests of aircraft actuation systems. The hinge moment varies widely over the flight envelope, depending on the specific flight condition and maneuvering status. To replicate the wide spectrum of this hinge moment variation within some accuracy hounds, a force controller is designed based on the Quantitative Feedback Theory (QFT). A dynamic model of the load actuation system Is derived, and compared with experimental results. Through this comparison, a nominal model of the load actuation system with some uncertainty bounds is developed. The efficacy of the QFT force controller is verified by a numerical simulation, in which combined aircraft dynamics, flight control law and hydraulic actuation system dynamics of the aircraft control surface are considered     

MODAL DISCONTINUOUS GALERKIN METHOD FOR SHOCK WAVE STRUCTURES

The discontinuous Galerkin （DG） finite element method has been popular as a numerical technique for solving the conservation laws, In the present study, in order to investigate the shock wave structures in highly thermal nonequilibrium, an explicit modal cell-based DG scheme is developed for solving the conservation laws in conjunction with nonlinear coupled constitutive relations （NCCR）. Convergent iterative methods for solving alge- braic constitutive relations are also implemented in the DG scheme. It is shown that the new scheme works well for all Mach numbers, for example, Ma = 15.     

First measurements of cosmic-ray nuclei at high energy with CREAM

The balloon-borne cosmic-ray experiment CREAM-I (Cosmic-Ray Energetics And Mass) recently completed a successful 42-day flight during the 2004–2005 NASA/NSF/NSBF Antarctic expedition. CREAM-I combines an imaging calorimeter with charge detectors and a precision transition radiation detector (TRD). The TRD component of CREAM-I is targeted at measuring the energy of cosmic-ray particles with charges greater than Z ∼ 3. A central science goal of this effort is the determination of the ratio of secondary to primary nuclei at high energy. This measurement is crucial for the reconstruction of the propagation history of cosmic rays, and consequently for the determination of their source spectra. First scientific results from this instrument are presented.