Use of MEMS Sensors to Design a Life Consumption Monitoring System for Electronics

To improve the reliability, the design and the maintenance of electronic systems, the knowledge of the operational environment in which these systems operate is essential. HUMS (Health and Usage Monitoring System) are specialised in environmental monitoring and provide operating life status according to the experienced loads. Nevertheless, their major drawbacks, which limit their use, come from their size and their ability to provide relevant information for health assessment. Usually performed by a ground-based software, the environmental data are analysed off-board periodically, after regular HUMS downloads. However, the speed needed for failure prediction calculation from the stress monitored to the warning reported is essential to prevent ongoing operation of an electronic system on the way to failure. This paper presents a smart integrated electronic system embedding MEMS sensors for in-situ health assessment associated to the experienced loads. This system uses advanced algorithms processing the measurements for immediate Prognostic Health Monitoring (PHM), based on the Physics of Failure for real-time life consumption prediction of electronic systems.