PHM Design Based on Cooperative Design

For complex systems, such as the aircraft, the implementation of prognostics and health management (PHM) techniques can effectively improves the system performance and achieves the required reliability, safety and supportability. Traditionally, the design of the PHM system and the aircraft is often implemented separately and sequentially, which is not optimal in the view of the whole aircraft system. This paper focuses on the cooperative design of the PHM system. According to the design requirements of the aircraft, the design of the PHM system is integrated into the traditional aircraft design process based on the process decomposition techniques. By introducing the architecture of the cooperative PHM design, the aircraft and its PHM system can be designed simultaneously, which would significantly improve the design of the PHM system and in turn improve the design of the aircraft. The implementation of the cooperative design in the aircraft design could also reduce the development cycle-time and hence reduce the total cost.