Quantum assimilation based state-of-health assessment and remaining useful life estimation for electronic systems

Abstract

State-of-health (SOH) assessment and remaining useful life (RUL) estimation are among the key issues in prognostics and health management (PHM) for electronic systems. Unlike mechanical systems, the homogeneity of the fault modes is quite low for electronic systems. Seen at the system level, there are also multiple and uncertain fault modes for electronic products. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology for system-level SOH assessment and RUL estimation inspired by the quantum mechanics disciplines, where there is no requirement to distinguish the fault modes from the fault development patterns. It is developed on the analogy that the healthy data points tend to move to the lower potential energy positions, and the subhealthy or unhealthy ones tend to be repelled from such positions. The fault development paths are located on the potential surface. The Fermi–Dirac health descriptor (FDHD) is defined based on the pseudowave function and potential function. Based on FDHD, the SOH assessment and RUL estimation algorithm are developed to track the existing fault development paths. Finally, the proposed method is verified in an experiment using power conversion board with a detailed analysis of the SOH assessment results and RUL estimation performances.