Summary

There is a major thrust worldwide on developing affordable Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) technologies in aerospace, automotive and other areas. The fundamental objective is to enhance availability, increase safety and reduce unscheduled maintenance costs. IVHM enables fault detection, isolation, root cause analysis and potential diagnostics. In addition, it aims at developing robust algorithms to predict the onset of a fault, minimizing false alarms and estimating the remaining useful life of the mission despite the adversity. IVHM optimally integrates technologies in sensors, vehicle systems, prognostics and diagnostics.

NASA and CSIR-NAL have received an award to jointly organize the first Indo-US Workshop on IVHM and Aviation Safety (WIAS), sponsored by Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) from Jan. 5th to 7th, 2012 in Bangalore, which is the aerospace hub of the country.

Purpose

The purpose of the workshop is to deliberate, discuss and evolve the state of the art aerospace systems’ health management strategies, and identify opportunities for collaboration between US & Indian Institutions. This will help orchestrate preparation of IVHM roadmap into the future. This is an attempt, initiated at NAL, in the direction of creating an ecosystem among R&D;, Academics and Industry on the subject matter as a part of the IVHM Mission for aerospace industry. We thus see unprecedented opportunities for discussions and knowledge networking in the areas of IVHM.

Participation

An active participation from following organizations / agencies is expected:

Leading US academic institutions including Stanford, Berkley, Georgia Tech and Auburn University
US Industry including GM, GE, Honeywell, Boeing Research, Lockheed Martin, Rockwell Collins

European organizations such as the Center of Excellence, Cranfield, UK; LMS International, Belgium; Airbus & Dassault systems, France
Top Indian Academia like IITs & IISc, R&D; (like DRDO, CSIR, DST, DOS), Industry, Regulatory (DGCA) and Armed Forces.

The IVHM program envisages close cooperation of R&D;, Academia and Industry (national and international) and has immediate applications to legacy, current and future generation aircraft and other programs.

Expected outcome

• Collaborations on development of IVHM methodologies, architectures, diagnostics and prognostics algorithms, modeling and simulation.
• Close cooperation among US & Indian academic institutions and research centers Collaborations on crucial topics in IVHM thus complementing each other’s resources
• Roadmap of IVHM in the Indian and global context involving Indian counterparts from academic, R&D; and Industrial institutions
• Initiating right IVHM concepts in the design of NextGen civil aircraft.

Principal Investigators

India Dr Satish Chandra, PD, NCAD & HoD, Structures Division, National Aerospace laboratories, Bangalore

USA Dr Ashok N. Srivastava, Principal Research Scientist & Intelligent Data Understanding Group Lead, NASA Ames Research Center, USA
Convener

Convener Dr Vanam Upendranath, Scientist & IVHM Group Leader, NCAD