Improved Electronics Maintenance through Tester Prognostics Navy SBIR FY2013.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2013.2 Topic No.: N132-091 Topic Title: Improved Electronics Maintenance through Tester Prognostics Proposal No.: N132-091-0713 Firm: Qualtech Systems, Inc. 99 East River Drive East Hartford, Connecticut 06108 Contact: Sudipto Ghoshal Phone: (860) 761-9341 Web Site: www.teamqsi.com Abstract: Electronic systems undergo degradation and eventually experience faults and failures. The complexity of these systems, which provides unprecedented level of functional capabilities, puts forward formidable challenges in predicting, tracking and identifying the trend and source of degradations and failures. However, methods and tools for electronic prognostics in Automatic Test Systems (ATS) are still limited. Qualtech Systems, Inc. (QSI) and Montana State University (MSU) intend to develop standards-conformant tools and processes to support electronics maintenance by leveraging a diagnostic reasoner (Testability Engineering And Maintenance System - Remote Diagnosis Server (TEAMS-RDSr)) and a prognostic reasoner (Standards-based Analysis Platform for Predictive Health and Integrated Reasoning Environment-Prognostics (SAPPHIRE-P) ) in the DoD ATS framework. The proposed effort will result in a software environment that is standards-conformant ePHM tool based on managing and combining test and diagnostics data from the UUTs and ATE test results, and aggregating the information across the spectrum of UUTs and ATE in the Navy to enhance the prognostic performance. To embed the developed tools and processes into the Navy and DoD ATS, the adoption of prognostic extensions to current industry standards and possibly the creation of entirely new standards devoted to the needs of ePHM will also be recommended. Benefits: The proposed ePHM solution should be of significant relevance to Navy ATS as well as other ATS families in DoD (e.g., eCASS, JSECST, IFTE, TETS, and VDATS) because it will provide means for further (1) increasing weapon system material readiness, (2) reducing weapon system initial, support and life cycle costs, (3) reducing proliferation of peculiar support equipment, (4) improving quality of test by leveraging embedded and other diagnostic data, (5) DoD testing capability for existing and future electronic requirements, and (6) moving forward to extensions/creations of ATS-related standards devoted to the needs of ePHM. Implementation of the proposed solution, in one hand, will enhance the ePHM capability of the solution, and on the other hand will ensure the reliability and conformance of the solution to military and industry standards. While the immediate target or deployment of this technology will be Navy aviation environment, such a capable and proven ePHM solution for electronic systems is of interest to diverse types of industry, including semiconductor fabrication, automobiles, shipboard systems, aviation, medical, and space system developers. Return