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Propulsion Diagnostic Method Evaluation Strategy (ProDiMES)
A standard benchmarking problem and evaluation metrics to enable the comparison of candidate aircraft engine gas path diagnostic methods
Background
Many of the propulsion gas path diagnostic method solutions published in the open literature are applied to different platforms, with different levels of complexity, addressing different problems, and using different metrics for evaluating performance. As such, it is difficult to perform a one-to-one comparison of candidate approaches. Furthermore, these inconsistencies create barriers to effective development of new algorithms and the exchange of results. To help address these issues, the Propulsion Diagnostic Method Evaluation Strategy (ProDiMES) software tool has been specifically designed with the intent to be made publicly available. In this form it can serve as a reference, or theme problem, to aid in propulsion gas path diagnostic technology development and evaluation. The overall goal is to provide a tool that will serve as an industry standard, and will truly facilitate the development and evaluation of significant Engine Health Management (EHM) capabilities. ProDiMES has been developed under a collaborative project of The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP) based on feedback provided by individuals within the aircraft engine health management community.
ProDiMES Benchmarking Process
The ProDiMES tool is coded in MATLAB (The Mathworks, Inc.), and consists of the following functions:
- Engine Fleet Simulator (EFS): Emulates the collection of data at takeoff and cruise from a fleet of engines over their lifetime of use.
- Diagnostic Methods: User-provided, and designed to process the simulated parameter histories produced by the EFS and generate a diagnostic assessment for each engine each flight.
- Metrics: Software program automatically evaluates and archives performance of diagnostic solutions against established metrics.
- Blind Test Case Data: To enable the side-by-side comparison of diagnostic solutions developed by multiple users. The target false positive rate for these diagnostic solutions is less than one false positive per 1000 flights
Requesting Access to ProDiMES
ProDiMES is available for both US and foreign release. Individuals can request ProDiMES, free of charge, through the NASA Glenn Research Center Software Catalog:
http://sr.grc.nasa.gov/
Note: Users will be required to sign and return a NASA software usage agreement (SUA) prior to being granted access to the software. The SUA will prohibit end users from publication or distribution of the results from running ProDiMES until a follow on workshop is held (see schedule below).
Schedule
- ProDiMES released to the engine health management community (currently available). Release includes:
- MATLAB software for independent development and evaluation of diagnostic methods
- Identical blind test cases
- Individual development and evaluation (now through spring 2012)
- Participants provide blind test case results to NASA (now through spring 2012)
- NASA evaluates provided blind test case results and informs participant of their false alarm rate (within 1 to 2 days after results are submitted). Note: In an attempt to maintain a level of uniformity in the diagnostic solutions applied, a target false positive detection rate (false alarm rate) of no greater than once per 1,000 flights is specified. As initial feedback, participants will only be provided their false alarm rate. If a submission fails to meet the target false alarm rate the participant will be informed of this and asked to re-submit their results applying less aggressive thresholds. Similarly, those participants whose submissions produce a false alarm rate less than the target will have the opportunity to re-submit results applying tighter thresholds.
- Workshop (location to be determined) to disseminate results, lessons learned, and to capture recommendations for improving ProDiMES (spring of 2012). At this workshop:
- Participants will be asked to make presentations on their applied diagnostic algorithms in similar technical detail to that of a technical conference.
- A summary of the blind test case results will be presented at the workshop. Workshop participants will receive their own results, plus the anonymous results of other participants at the workshop.
- Selected participants will also be invited to provide a technical paper within two months of the workshop documenting their diagnostic approach and results applied to ProDiMES-generated test cases. This collection of papers will be published as a proceedings of the ProDiMES workshop.
- Please visit this website for future updates regarding the workshop:
- An updated version of ProDiMES will be created and released after the workshop. This future release will add more realism to the presented gas-path diagnostic problem. Modifications will also be made to address lessons learned and to incorporate user-provided feedback. All users are encouraged to provide their suggestions for improving ProDiMES to assist in this process.
Additional Information
For additional details on ProDiMES:
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