Challenges, issues, and lessons learned chasing the "Big P". Real predictive prognostics. Part 1

The desire and need for real predictive prognostics capabilities have been around for as long as man has operated complex and expensive machinery. There has been a long history of trying to develop and implement various degrees of prognostic and useful life remaining capabilities. Stringent diagnostic, prognostic, and health management capability requirements are being placed on new applications, like the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), in order to enable and reap the benefits of revolutionary autonomic logistic support concepts. While fault detection and fault isolation effectiveness with very low false alarm rates continue to improve on these new applications; the prognostics requirements are even more ambitious and present very significant challenges to the system design teams. This paper explores some of these design challenges and issues; discuss the various degrees of prognostic capabilities; and draw heavily on lessons learned from previous prognostic development efforts.