Developing and Deploying ICAS-Capable CBM Software Modules: Best Practices and Lessons Learned

The U.S. Navy’s Integrated Condition Assessment System (ICAS) is a shipboard monitoring system that helps enable the Navy’s Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) initiative. ICAS is installed on a large number of Navy Surface Combatants and provides data acquisition, display, and logging, as well as equipment diagnostic analysis for troubleshooting and maintenance tasking of hull mechanical and electrical systems. In recent years, it has been desirable to integrate specialized, third party diagnostic or prognostic software as plug ‘n play modules within the ICAS environment. A specific effort focused on such modules for shipboard LM2500 and Allison 501K gas turbine engines is well underway. Over the course of this three-year Prognostic Enhancement to Diagnostic System (PEDS) program, many lessons have been learned, best practices for ICAS integration have been identified, and the important steps required to field ICAS-capable modules have been realized. This paper summarizes these lessons and processes for future 3^rd party integration efforts and provides specific examples for the developed gas turbine modules. The successful deployment of these modules aboard Navy ships is used to validate the ideas presented.