Prognostics-Enabled Power Supply for ADAPT Testbed, Phase II

Ridgetop's role is to develop electronic prognostics for sensing power systems in support of NASA/Ames ADAPT testbed. The prognostic enabled power systems from Ridgetop are to be integrated into NASA's Advanced Diagnostics and Prognostics Testbed (ADAPT) and later used in the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). Prognostics will provide power supply "state of health", remaining useful life (RUL) and notify operators of impending failures so that load-shedding or orderly switch-overs can be supported. Using the ADAPT at NASA/Ames Research Center, Ridgetop will design, implement and validate a prototype prognostic sensor that employs both analog circuits and digital logic in a microcontroller unit (MCU) or microproprocessor controller (MPC) to "prognostics-enable" a high efficiency switching power converter. The ADAPT is a testbed, developed to explore health-management systems in manned spaceflight with three main goals: 1) to assess performance of diagnostic tools and algorithms against a standardized testbed and repeatable failure scenarios, 2) to develop prognostic models (performance degradation, remaining life estimation) for spacecraft subsystems, and 3) prototype Advanced Caution and Warning System (ACAWS) algorithms and user interfaces. By developing effective and practical prognostics for a power supply, Ridgetop's role will be to extend the capabilities of the ADAPT testbed.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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