SBIR-STTR Award

High performance sensors are playing an increasingly important role in all aspects of all critical DoD missions. There is a family of sensors that operate with improved sensitivities if cooled to very low (cryogenic) temperatures. For these sensors a mechanical refrigeration system (cryocooler) is required. Sest Inc. proposes to develop a full-scale reliability based Prognostic Health Management (PHM) models/algorithms that are based on the physics of failure and actual failure data (past experience, ground tests) and integrate in to an in flight real time software tool for the Cryocooler Health Monitoring System (CHMS). The proposed CHMS shall be capable of assessing the cryocooler "health" from the viewpoint of the level of performance degradation and/or the potential for near term failure. While the proposed system is focused on the specific application to linear drive cryocoolers, especially for DoD, many of the attributes of the system can be applied to other specialized system hardware in both commercial and U.S. Government agency for situations where it is critical that all aspects of the hardware "health" and "remaining useful life" be fully understood.

Assuring success in all aspects of critical DoD missions is becoming dominated by the availability of high performance sensors. There is a family of sensors that operate with very improved sensitivities if cooled to very low (cryogenic) temperatures. For such sensors a mechanical refrigeration system (cryocooler) is required for successful sensor operation. Sest, Inc. proposes to advance it’s Phase I effort, which has demonstrated significant progress in all aspects of the feasibility and conceptual development of the Cryocooler Prognostic Health Management System (CPHMS), into an integrated functional prototype package. Developed CPHMS during Phase II effort will be fully capable in determining the reliable remaining useful life (RRUL) of cryocooler systems. The CPHMS system functionality will be fully demonstrated and documented during the Phase II via comparative testing with actual Stirling cycle cryocooler systems. The proposed CPHMS will be adaptable to any type of cryocooler configuration and as such be able to support DoD aerospace requirements along with those of other US Government and commercial end users.

Keywords:
Cryocooler, Prognostic, Diagnostic, Health, Reliability, Life, Degradation, Sensitivity