Sensor failure detection system

Advanced concepts for detecting, isolating, and accommodating sensor failures were studied to determine their applicability to the gas turbine control problem. Five concepts were formulated based upon such techniques as Kalman filters and a screening process led to the selection of one advanced concept for further evaluation. The selected advanced concept uses a Kalman filter to generate residuals, a weighted sum square residuals technique to detect soft failures, likelihood ratio testing of a bank of Kalman filters for isolation, and reconfiguring of the normal mode Kalman filter by eliminating the failed input to accommodate the failure. The advanced concept was compared to a baseline parameter synthesis technique. The advanced concept was shown to be a viable concept for detecting, isolating, and accommodating sensor failures for the gas turbine applications

Aircraft Engine On-Line Diagnostics Through Dual-Channel Sensor Measurements: Development of a Baseline System

In this paper, a baseline system which utilizes dual-channel sensor measurements for aircraft engine on-line diagnostics is developed. This system is composed of a linear on-board engine model (LOBEM) and fault detection and isolation (FDI) logic. The LOBEM provides the analytical third channel against which the dual-channel measurements are compared. When the discrepancy among the triplex channels exceeds a tolerance level, the FDI logic determines the cause of the discrepancy. Through this approach, the baseline system achieves the following objectives: (1) anomaly detection, (2) component fault detection, and (3) sensor fault detection and isolation. The performance of the baseline system is evaluated in a simulation environment using faults in sensors and components

Exploring Prognostic and Diagnostic Techniques for Jet Engine Health Monitoring: A Review of Degradation Mechanisms and Advanced Prediction Strategies

Maintenance is crucial for aircraft engines because of the demanding conditions to which they are exposed during operation. A proper maintenance plan is essential for ensuring safe flights and prolonging the life of the engines. It also plays a major role in managing costs for aeronautical companies. Various forms of degradation can affect different engine components. To optimize cost management, modern maintenance plans utilize diagnostic and prognostic techniques, such as Engine Health Monitoring (EHM), which assesses the health of the engine based on monitored parameters. In recent years, various EHM systems have been developed utilizing computational techniques. These algorithms are often enhanced by utilizing data reduction and noise filtering tools, which help to minimize computational time and efforts, and to improve performance by reducing noise from sensor data. This paper discusses the various mechanisms that lead to the degradation of aircraft engine components and the impact on engine performance. Additionally, it provides an overview of the most commonly used data reduction and diagnostic and prognostic techniques

Propulsion Control Technology Development Needs to Address NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Goals for Thrusts 3a and 4

The Commercial Aero-Propulsion Control Working Group (CAPCWG), consisting of propulsion control technology leads from The Boeing Company, GE Aviation, Honeywell, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce, and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Glenn Research Center, has been working together over the past year to identify propulsion control technology areas of common interest that we believe are critical to achieving the challenging NASA Aeronautics Research goals for Thrust 3a: Ultra-Efficient Commercial Vehicles - Subsonic Transports, and Thrust 4: Transition to Alternative Propulsion and Energy. This paper describes the various propulsion control technology development areas identified by CAPCWG as most critical for NASA to invest in. For Thrust 3a these are: i) Integrated On-Board Model Based Engine Control and Health Management; ii) Flexible and Modular Networked Control Hardware and Software Architecture; iii) Intelligent Air/Fuel Control for Low Emissions Combustion; and iv) Active Clearance Control. For Thrust 4a, the focus is on Hybrid Electric Propulsion (HEP) for single aisle commercial aircraft. The specific technology development areas include: i) Integrated Power and Propulsion System Dynamic Modeling for Control; ii) Control Architectures for HEP; iii) HEP Control Verification and Validation; and iv) Engine/Airplane Control Integration. For each of the technology areas, the discussion includes: problem to be solved and how it relates to NASA goals, and the challenges to be addressed in reducing risk

Aircraft Turbine Engine Control Research at NASA Glenn Research Center

This paper provides an overview of the aircraft turbine engine control research at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). A brief introduction to the engine control problem is first provided with a description of the state-of-the-art control law structure. A historical aspect of engine control development since the 1940s is then provided with a special emphasis on the contributions of GRC. With the increased emphasis on aircraft safety, enhanced performance, and affordability, as well as the need to reduce the environmental impact of aircraft, there are many new challenges being faced by the designers of aircraft propulsion systems. The Controls and Dynamics Branch (CDB) at GRC is leading and participating in various projects to develop advanced propulsion controls and diagnostics technologies that will help meet the challenging goals of NASA Aeronautics Research Mission programs. The rest of the paper provides an overview of the various CDB technology development activities in aircraft engine control and diagnostics, both current and some accomplished in the recent past. The motivation for each of the research efforts, the research approach, technical challenges, and the key progress to date are summarized

Fault Diagnosis and Estimation of Dynamical Systems with Application to Gas Turbines

This thesis contributes and provides solutions to the problem of fault diagnosis and estimation from three different perspectives which are i) fault diagnosis of nonlinear systems using nonlinear multiple model approach, ii) inversion-based fault estimation in linear systems, and iii) data-driven fault diagnosis and estimation in linear systems. The above contributions have been demonstrated to the gas turbines as one of the most important engineering systems in the power and aerospace industries. The proposed multiple model approach is essentially a hierarchy of nonlinear Kalman filters utilized as detection filters. A nonlinear mathematical model for a gas turbines is developed and verified. The fault vector is defined using the Gas Path Analysis approach. The nonlinear Kalman filters that correspond to the defined single or concurrent fault modes provide the conditional probabilities associated with each fault mode using the Bayes' law. The current fault mode is then determined based on the maximum probability criteria. The performance of both Extended Kalman Filters (EKF) and Unscented Kalman Filters (UKF) are investigated and compared which demonstrates that the UKF outperforms the EKF for this particular application. The problem of fault estimation is increasingly receiving more attention due to its practical importance. Fault estimation is closely related to the problem of linear systems inversion. This thesis includes two contributions for the stable inversion of non-minimum phase systems. First, a novel methodology is proposed for direct estimation of unknown inputs by using only measurements of either minimum or non-minimum phase systems as well as systems with transmission zeros on the unit circle. A dynamic filter is then identified whose poles coincide with the transmission zeros of the system. A feedback is then introduced to stabilize the above filter dynamics as well as provide an unbiased estimation of the unknown input. The methodology is then applied to the problem of fault estimation and has been shown that the proposed inversion filter is unbiased for certain categories of faults. Second, a solution for unbiased reconstruction of general inputs is proposed. It is based on designing an unknown input observer (UIO) that provides unbiased estimation of the minimum phase states of the system. The reconstructed minimum phase states serve then as inputs for reconstruction of the non-minimum phase states. The reconstruction error for non-minimum phase states exponentially decrease as the estimation delay is increased. Therefore, an almost perfect reconstruction can be achieved by selecting the delay to be sufficiently large. The proposed inversion scheme is then applied to the output-tracking control problem. An important practical challenge is the fact that engineers rarely have a detailed and accurate mathematical model of complex engineering systems such as gas turbines. Consequently, one can find a trend towards data-driven approaches in many disciplines, including fault diagnosis. In this thesis, explicit state-space based fault detection, isolation and estimation filters are proposed that are directly identified from only the system input-output (I/O) measurements and through the system Markov parameters. The proposed procedures do not involve a reduction step and do not require identification of the system extended observability matrix or its left null space. Therefore, the performance of the proposed filters is directly connected to and linearly dependent on the errors in the Markov parameters estimation process. The estimation error dynamics is then derived in terms of the Markov parameters identification errors and directly synthesized from the healthy system I/O data. Consequently, the estimation errors have been effectively compensated for. The proposed data-driven scheme requires the persistently exciting condition for healthy input data which is not practical for certain real life applications and in particular to gas turbine engines. To address this issue, a robust methodology for Markov parameters estimation using frequency response data is developed. Finally, the performance of the proposed data-driven approach is comprehensively evaluated for the fault diagnosis and estimation problems in the gas turbine engines

Sensor and Actuator Needs for More Intelligent Gas Turbine Engines

This paper provides an overview of the controls and diagnostics technologies, that are seen as critical for more intelligent gas turbine engines (GTE), with an emphasis on the sensor and actuator technologies that need to be developed for the controls and diagnostics implementation. The objective of the paper is to help the "Customers" of advanced technologies, defense acquisition and aerospace research agencies, understand the state-of-the-art of intelligent GTE technologies, and help the "Researchers" and "Technology Developers" for GTE sensors and actuators identify what technologies need to be developed to enable the "Intelligent GTE" concepts and focus their research efforts on closing the technology gap. To keep the effort manageable, the focus of the paper is on "On-Board Intelligence" to enable safe and efficient operation of the engine over its life time, with an emphasis on gas path performanc

A Model-Based Anomaly Detection Approach for Analyzing Streaming Aircraft Engine Measurement Data

This paper presents a model-based anomaly detection architecture designed for analyzing streaming transient aircraft engine measurement data. The technique calculates and monitors residuals between sensed engine outputs and model predicted outputs for anomaly detection purposes. Pivotal to the performance of this technique is the ability to construct a model that accurately reflects the nominal operating performance of the engine. The dynamic model applied in the architecture is a piecewise linear design comprising steady-state trim points and dynamic state space matrices. A simple curve-fitting technique for updating the model trim point information based on steadystate information extracted from available nominal engine measurement data is presented. Results from the application of the model-based approach for processing actual engine test data are shown. These include both nominal fault-free test case data and seeded fault test case data. The results indicate that the updates applied to improve the model trim point information also improve anomaly detection performance. Recommendations for follow-on enhancements to the technique are also presented and discussed

Propulsion Controls and Diagnostics Research in Support of NASA Aeronautics and Exploration Mission Programs

The Controls and Dynamics Branch (CDB) at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, Ohio, is leading and participating in various projects in partnership with other organizations within GRC and across NASA, the U.S. aerospace industry, and academia to develop advanced propulsion controls and diagnostics technologies that will help meet the challenging goals of NASA programs under the Aeronautics Research and Exploration Systems Missions. This paper provides a brief overview of the various CDB tasks in support of the NASA programs. The programmatic structure of the CDB activities is described along with a brief overview of each of the CDB tasks including research objectives, technical challenges, and recent accomplishments. These tasks include active control of propulsion system components, intelligent propulsion diagnostics and control for reliable fault identification and accommodation, distributed engine control, and investigations into unsteady propulsion systems