Aircraft engine gas path diagnostic methods: public benchmarking results

Recent technology reviews have identified the need for objective assessments of aircraft engine health management (EHM) technologies. To help address this issue, a publicly available gas path diagnostic benchmarking problem has been created and made publicly available. This software tool, referred to as the Propulsion Diagnostic Method Evaluation Strategy (ProDiMES), has been constructed based on feedback provided by individuals within the aircraft EHM community. It provides a standard benchmarking problem enabling users to develop, evaluate and compare diagnostic methods. This paper will present an overview of ProDiMES along with a description of four gas path diagnostic methods developed and applied to the problem. These methods, which include analytical and empirical diagnostic techniques, will be described and associated blind test case metric results will be presented and compared. Lessons learned along with recommendations for improving the public benchmarking processes will also be presented and discussed.