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This paper describes an end-to-end Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) development process with a strong emphasis on the COTS software tools employed for the implementation of this process. A mix of physical simulation and functional failure analysis was chosen as a route for early assessment of degradation in complex systems as capturing system failure modes and their symptoms facilitates the assessment of health management solutions for a complex asset. The method chosen for the IVHM development is closely correlated to the generic engineering cycle. The concepts employed by this method are further demonstrated on a laboratory fuel system test rig, but they can also be applied to both new and legacy hi-tech high-value systems. Another objective of the study is to identify the relations between the different types of knowledge supporting the health management development process when using together physical and functional models. The conclusion of this lead is that functional modeling and physical simulation should not be done in isolation. The functional model requires permanent feedback from a physical system simulator in order to be able to build a functional model that will accurately represent the real system. This paper will therefore also describe the steps required to correctly develop a functional model that will reflect the physical knowledge inherently known about a given system.

Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) describes a set of capabilities that enable effective and efficient maintenance and operation of the target vehicle. It accounts for the collecting of data, conducting analysis, and supporting the decision-making process for sustainment and operation. The design of IVHM systems endeavours to account for all causes of failure in a disciplined, systems engineering, manner. With industry striving to reduce through-life cost, IVHM is a powerful tool to give forewarning of impending failure and hence control over the outcome. Benefits have been realised from this approach across a number of different sectors but, hindering our ability to realise further benefit from this maturing technology, is the fact that IVHM is still treated as added on to the design of the asset, rather than being a sub-system in its own right, fully integrated with the asset design. The elevation and integration of IVHM in this way will enable architectures to be chosen that accommodate health ready sub-systems from the supply chain and design trade-offs to be made, to name but two major benefits. Barriers to IVHM being integrated with the asset design are examined in this paper. The paper presents progress in overcoming them, and suggests potential solutions for those that remain. It addresses the IVHM system design from a systems engineering perspective and the integration with the asset design will be described within an industrial design process.