Development and Optimization of IVHM / ISHM

eXpress is ideally suited for Vehicle Health Management development. As a system tool, eXpress easily handles either Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM). Integrated System Health Management (ISHM) or Integrated Prognostic Health Management (IPHM). The later term referring to the bigger picture where IVHM technologies have moved to a systems level, that includes ground support, remote monitoring and management, etc. ISHM provides a building block for autonomous vehicles.

This ability comes from eXpress' support for more than just FD/FI statistics. eXpress supports a systems top-down approach to diagnostic and systems development, which makes it perfect for building in a concept as far-reaching as IVHM.

IVHM impacts virtually every aspect of the systems design, including:

  • Type of Placement of Sensors
  • Maintenance Concept
  • Redundancy
  • Partitioning
  • Part Selection
  • Processing Requirements

The most common approach to IVHM is to incorporate area managers, to handle events that require immediate action, allowing higher order processing to resolve to the vehicle manager. This approach is similar to what we know about how our own nervous system works. The spinal chord hands emergency response, akin to the area managers, while the brain handles higher-order reasoning, akin to the Vehicle-level manager.

When designing this approach in eXpress, Tests at various levels within the system capture their specific scope of concern, but with the system in mind. That is, diagnostics will think at any level needed, yet the system is still connected in its entirety for diagnostic purposes. This allows the designer to find ambiguities that only exist in the system concept.

The system can often be the source of hidden failures due to:

  • System-level Feedback Loops
  • Visibility to Sensor Data
  • Complex Modes of Operation
  • etc.

To solve these problems, eXpress can be applied in many ways, including:

  • Fault Detection, from both a Diagnostics and FMECA perspective
  • Feedback Loops, for a single design or any level of the system
  • Unremediated Faults in the FMECA report

Please refer to article "IVHM Design Using eXpress" for more information.

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