Lessons learned from rotary- and fixed-wing HUMS applications

The United States Navy, United States Marine Corp, United States Army and their supporting aircraft manufacturers have teamed with BFGoodrich Aerospace Aircraft Integrated Systems (AIS) Division to develop an integrated Health and Usage Management Systems (HUMS) for their service-specific helicopters. Primarily, these aircraft include H-60 and H-53 variants. Likewise, Lockheed-Martin has contracted with AIS to demonstrate a propulsion system Prognostics and Health Manager (PHM) for use on their lift-fan equipped Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Preferred Weapon System Concept (PWSC) aircraft. The principal intent is to improve readiness and reduce operational costs using streamlined maintenance practices. The enabling data will be derived through automated condition and health monitoring. Although each HUMS user requires different aircraft- and service-specific functions, the experience of providing these advanced services to a variety of customers enables us to better define those functions and their integration (both on-board and off). This paper presents lessons-learned from several aspects of aerospace HUMS (diagnostics, prognostics and regime recognition) implementations and touches on related areas (conceptual design, system integration, etc.) as needed. These lessons are based on our continuing work with military platform users and designers while making new technology available through the open system.