An automated contingency management simulation environment for integrated health management and control

Abstract

This work presents an automated contingency management (ACM) software simulation test bed developed in Simulink that can be applied to various unmanned platforms for developing; testing and verifying automated fault accommodation strategies. Specifically, this paper introduces the required software components and integrated health management and control architecture for performing these tasks and applies it to the unmanned combat armed rotorcraft (UCAR). The ACM Simulink Blockset provides for ''plug in play" integration of UAV models, prognostic and health management (PHM) algorithms, adaptive flight control logic, and intelligent agents into a simulation-based design environment. By integrating advanced health management, intelligent control, and intelligent reasoner strategies, the ACM simulation test bench allows designers to examine optimal fault accommodation techniques that can increases availability, improve safety, and optimize maintenance resource planning for complex vehicle systems. The demonstrated graphical user interface enables the end users to initially configure the ACM system and monitor the effectiveness of the vehicle simulation under various fault scenarios. It also enables users to rapidly design and simulate ACM components for integrated health monitoring and control system for helicopter robotics, UCARs, reusable launch vehicles, propulsion, aircraft, automotive, etc.