A Simulation Study on Wear Monitoring and Prognosis in Electro-Mechanical Brakes for a Small Passenger Aircraft

The evolution towards “more-electric” aircraft has accelerated in the last decade, motivated by environmental concerns and the development of new market frontiers such as urban air mobility. This transition is affecting both propulsion and aircraft systems, with electro-mechanical brakes (E-Brakes) representing a promising alternative to traditional hydraulic solutions. While E-Brakes offer advantages such as reduced system complexity and elimination of hydraulic leakage issues, they remain a relatively unproven technology in civil aviation. In this context, the development of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) solutions aligns with the need for continuous monitoring of novel components while also providing the benefits typically associated with prognostic techniques. This paper presents the preliminary stages of the development of a PHM framework for an E-Brake intended for future executive-class aircraft. Since experimental activities are not yet available, the analysis was carried out on simulated data generated through a high-fidelity model of the system. The study focuses on brake pad wear as the primary degradation mechanism and proposes a particle-filtering approach to estimate the health state and predict the Remaining Useful Life (RUL). Early results obtained from simulated fault-to-failure trajectories prove the ability of the algorithm to track degradation and to provide reliable prognostic forecasts, paving the way for future validation with real-world data.