Remaining useful life prediction based on the Wiener process for an aviation axial piston pump

An aviation hydraulic axial piston pump’s degradation from comprehensive wear is a typical gradual failure model. Accurate wear prediction is difficult as random and uncertain char-acteristics must be factored into the estimation. The internal wear status of the axial piston pump is characterized by the return oil flow based on fault mechanism analysis of the main frictional pairs in the pump. The performance degradation model is described by the Wiener process to predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of the pump. Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is performed by utilizing the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm to estimate the initial parameters of the Wiener process while recursive estimation is conducted utilizing the Kalman filter method to estimate the drift coefficient of the Wiener process. The RUL of the pump is then calculated accord-ing to the performance degradation model based on the Wiener process. Experimental results indi-cate that the return oil flow is a suitable characteristic for reflecting the internal wear status of the axial piston pump, and thus the Wiener process-based method may effectively predicate the RUL of the pump.