Speaker: Catherine Cheung, Research Officer, National Research Council
Organized by: CI/SMC Ottawa Joint Chapter
Where: National Research Council, Building M-12, Room 217, 1200 Montreal Road
When: Thursday November 12th, 2015, 10:00 - 11:30 AM
Admission and parking are free; refreshments will be served
Contact info: Rafael Falcon (rfalcon@ieee.org)

Abstract:
The accurate estimation of helicopter component loads is an important task in life cycle management and life extension efforts. Since the operation of helicopter fleets has been increasingly extended to additional or expanded roles from the original design usage, there is a growing need to monitor individual aircraft usage and more accurately determine any changes in the life of the critical components caused by the change in usage. While measuring component loads directly is possible using installed sensors, the installation and operation of a sensor suite is challenging and expensive, and consequently seldom implemented. Therefore a robust and accurate process to indirectly estimate these loads could be a practical alternative. The application of computational intelligence techniques to this problem is a natural fit, given the complexity of the load signals and influence of numerous factors. Load estimation methods can utilize data obtained from existing aircraft instrumentation, such as standard flight state and control system parameters, to minimize the need for additional sensors.

This talk will describe the continued efforts at NRC to develop and improve computational intelligence-based methodologies to enable the estimation of helicopter loads and the tracking of load exceedances and fatigue damage for a targeted helicopter component from existing flight data. Computational intelligence algorithms, statistical and machine learning techniques, such as artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, fuzzy sets, residual variance analysis and others, were implemented as part of the data exploration and modelling stages of the methodologies. Results for the Australian S-70A-9 Black Hawk and the CH-146 Griffon will be presented.

Short bio:
CATHERINE CHEUNG is a research officer in the Aerospace Structural Integrity group at the National Research Council in Ottawa. She has worked with NRC since 2003, first specializing in full-scale structural test and their control systems, and more recently focusing on research in load and usage monitoring of rotary-wing structures using various computational intelligence techniques. She received a MASc from the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies and a BASc from the University of Toronto Engineering Science program.