Graphical Representation of Flight Electro-mechanical Actuators Test Data and Systems Health Monitoring Parameters Using Lissajous Patterns Enabling Automation

Abstract

Linear electromechanical actuators are popular in flight servo-actuation systems. Repertories of mandatory acceptance and health-monitoring tests result in the generation of large amounts of data. This poses challenges in handling the volumes of similar data sets by quality/systems health engineers, causing fatigue in making critical decisions. Attempt is made to ease such tasks by representing the data in a pictorial form to easily identify the parameters of interest. This study focuses on the use of Lissajous figures to pictorially represent the acceptance and condition monitoring test data the flight actuators. A graphical interpretation of acceptance test data represented by Lissajous patterns, aimed at the automation of test outcomes, is attempted. The extraction of system health indicators for mechanical faults in electromechanical linear actuators is also attempted. The results will help in developing expert systems taking advantage of current efficient pattern recognition and classification algorithms. This study focuses on easing the critical flight-worthiness clearance jobs of quality engineers and extracting system health parameters from test data represented graphically.