Capability-Based Operations and Sustainment – Aviation (COST-A) Technology Development

The U.S. Army traditionally has used a time-based, on-condition maintenance paradigm that relies on at-aircraft inspections and periodic in-depth phase inspections to determine condition and ensure airworthiness. The result is a significant maintenance burden, both scheduled and unscheduled, and excessive aircraft downtime. The objective of the Aviation Development Directorate-Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (ADD-AATD) and Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation (SAC) Capability-Based Operations and Sustainment Technology-Aviation (COST-A) project was to develop and demonstrate an integrated set of high value diagnostics, prognostics, and system health management technologies that reduce scheduled inspections and preventive maintenance while enhancing safety. More than two dozen Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) technologies across six primary rotorcraft systems (propulsion, drive train, airframe/structural, rotor, electrical, and vehicle management) were matured to TRL-6. These technologies were integrated into a prototype laboratory on-board system built around the Integrated Vehicle Health Management Unit (IVHMU) currently installed in all UH-60 Black Hawk aircraft and successfully demonstrated to perform concurrently in representative simulated flight scenarios, using playback data from healthy and faulty components. These PHM technologies can enable the Army to transition to a condition-based maintenance (CBM) paradigm. This paper summarizes the overall Validation and Verification (V&V) approach, demonstration results, and additional details of technologies that demonstrated the most promise for near-term transition. COST-A work is on-going to further mature a subset of these technologies through flight testing.