A Simulation-based Health Monitoring System Test-bed for an Electrical Power Distribution System

In this paper, we describe a simulation based health monitoring system test-bed for an electrical power distribution system developed at the Integrated Vehicle Health Management Centre, Cranfield University. The purpose of the test-bed is to provide a technology neutral basis for implementing and evaluation diagnostic systems and software architecture in support the condition based maintenance process. The paper describes real-time system architecture and concept of operations for the electrical power system test-bed. The four main components in the real-time test-bed are the electrical power system simulation model, fault insertion unit, health monitoring data processing and user interface. In this paper, we adopted a component based modelling paradigm for the implementation of the virtual electrical power system. All of the fault injections are currently implemented via software. The fault insertion unit allows for the repeatable injection of faults into the system. The qualitative/discrete model-based diagnostic reasoning approach is applied to the health monitoring process of the test-bed. The finite/discrete nature of the reasoning engine allows efficient and fast execution time in the diagnostic process. The experimental results show the health monitoring system is able to produce real-time performance and correct diagnostic assessments.