Integrated vehicle health management for aerospace platforms

This article introduces IVHM (integrated vehicle health management) fundamentals, identifies the primary challenges that face the aerospace IVHM developer, enumerates some of the approaches that are being integrated into Boeing products, and identifies key lessons learned that can be applied to new IVHM developments. Using automobile electronic systems for comparison, the following topics are discussed: diagnostic functions; prognostic functions; automated inspections; anomaly detection; aerospace systems complexity; affordability and interoperability; system lifespan requirements; operational and maintenance environments; market implications; practical application of IVHM techniques.