Optimal on-board / off-board partitioning of integrated vehicle health management system.

The research presented in this thesis is intended to investigate and develop method to address optimal on-board / off-board partitioning of Integrated Health Management (IVHM) System. The problem of optimal on-board / off-board partitioning of IVHM System, with the main focus on, but not limited to, diagnostics and prognostics, has not yet been examined in the current literature. As a result, there exist no current solutions to tackle the on-board / off-board partitioning problem. The main objective of this work is to propose, investigate and develop a novel method for optimal on-board / off-board partitioning of an aircraft IVHM System. The current (legacy) and future design aircraft system architectures have been critically reviewed, including analysis of technological limitations and barriers to implementation and integration of a partitioned IVHM System. Based on the findings from the literature review a set of main drivers for IVHM System partitioning has been defined in relation to health monitoring of aircraft system. These main drivers constitute the basis for the framework of further investigation towards optimal partitioning presented in this work. The novel criterion for optimal IVHM System partitioning has been investigated and developed in this work. The proposed criterion uses cost trade-off analysis with weighting coefficients related to a vehicle concept of operations (CONOPS). The criterion has been used to create the novel method for optimal on-board / off-board partitioning of IVHM System. New metrics to evaluate cost effectiveness of the partitioned IVHM System have been also developed. The computer program implementation and simulation study using synthetic data-set to test the proposed method is given here. The proposed novel method contributes to the evolvement of the emerging field of IVHM System.