Development of a PHM system for electrically actuated brakes of a small passenger aircraft

The evolution towards “more electric” aircraft has seen a decisive push in the last decade, due to the growing environmental concerns and the development of new market segments (Urban Air Mobility). Such push interested both the propulsion components and the aircraft systems, with the latter seeing a progressive trend in replacing the traditional solutions based on hydraulic power with electrical or electro-mechanical devices. Electro-mechanical brakes, or E-Brakes hereby onwards, would present several advantages over their hydraulic counterparts, mainly related to the avoidance of leakage issues and the simplification of the system architecture. Moreover, although it is expected a weight increase of the brake, the elimination of the hydraulic lanes would still come with an overall weight reduction. Despite these advantages, it remains a new, relatively unproven technology within the civil aviation field. Within this context, the development of PHM solutions would align with the need for an on-line monitoring of a relatively unproven component. This paper deals with the preliminary stages of the development of such PHM system for the E-Brake of a future executive class aircraft, iterating on previously published material and presenting a particle filtering approach based on a new degradation model and data provided through a revised high-fidelity model. The paper opens with the introduction to the research project and the technological demonstrator, positioning the performed work within the available literature. PHM activities, performed on simulated data-set are then presented and the preliminary results discussed.