HM+

Health monitoring is a broad, multi-disciplinary domain made up of specialised skills that are already available in the Walloon Region. However, prior to 2008, these skills had never been brought together within a coordinated project, and practical experience applying them in the aeronautics market was lacking.

Since January, 2008, CETIC has been collaborating in the HM+ (Health Monitoring +) project to remedy this situation. HM+ aims to reduce health monitoring (maintenance) costs in aeronautics by using embedded devices and information technologies in aircraft. This is a Marshall Plan-funded project that meets the requirements of the Walloon competitiveness cluster for aeronautics and space: Skywin (www.skywin.be).

The HM+ project is divided into two 2-year phases. The fi rst phase (2008-2009) consisted of the specification and design of a complete health monitoring system for three specifi c applications. The second phase (2010-2011) involves the development and validation of a functional prototype. At the beginning of 2010, the HM+ project entered its second phase.

The overall aim of the project is to increase reliability and safety inside aircraft through the use of health monitoring techniques. Three specific applications have been envisioned to achieve this:

• Actuator systems and damage simulation inside aircraft (this application is managed by Sonaca).

• Engine and equipment monitoring inside aircraft, a cryogenic actuator (managed by Techspace Aero).

• Electrical distribution systems and arc fault detection inside aircraft (managed by Thales Alenia Space ETCA).

The research topics are: design, integration and validation of new sensors and actuators, electronics and interfaces inside aircraft, damage assessment, critical embedded system certification methodologies, algorithms for default detection and error recognition, and signal processing from sensors inside aircraft.

CETIC is contributing to HM+ by monitoring engine oil system status in terms of temperature, pressure, rejection rate, coking phenomenon (obstruction caused by carbon deposits), etc. With its extensive expertise in embedded systems design, CETIC is assisting with the migration of the detection algorithms developed by the Automatic Control and Systems Analysis Department (SAAS) of the Université Libre de Bruxelles onto the platform prototype designed by the industrial partners. This task takes into account the embedded platform’s physical constraints (like processor and memory limitations) at the engines’ working temperatures. More specific aspects, such as advice on certification for critical embedded systems, following RTCA DO-178B (software standard) and RTCA DO-254 (hardware standard), are also provided by CETIC.

During 2010, CETIC began the development of a platform prototype to monitor engine oil system status. Among other things, CETIC helped port the detection algorithms from Matlab Simulink onto the embedded system designed in the project. CETIC has also studied the certifi cation potential of the platform’s software and hardware. The collaboration initiated with the partners will be pursued in the follow-up to the HM+ project, for which critical embedded systems certification will still be considered.