RIDGETOP GROUP, INC. SBIR Phase I Award, February 2021

Founded in 2000, and based on years of experience in prognostics at the board and module levels, Ridgetop will develop an Integrated Circuit (IC) that will play a key role in advanced Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) or Prognostic Health Management (PHM) systems.  These systems will detect degradation in critical systems in Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) to support maintenance and sustainment of the RPAs.  Northrop Grumman is a major manufacturer of RPA systems such as the FireBird or FireScout, and we have their support on this SBIR program. Ridgetop will use the Global Foundry 12nm process and we have prior experience with this semiconductor process.  The chip will house data conditioning and algorithms that will process incoming sensor data to provide State-of-Health (SoH) and Remaining Useful Life (RUL).  Since it is and IC-based implementation, the Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) will be low.  Northrop has requested that we initially focus on electromechanical actuators (EMA) that have H-Bridge type power sources that drive the actuators.  We have prior experience with prognostic monitoring of the EMA that we completed for the F-35.  Other systems that we have prognostic-enabled include the Apache Helicopter power system, Battery Based power systems for air-deployed sonobuoys, and commercial applications for off-grid power systems and rail car bearing degradation.  Our work on batteries lately has been CellSage™ modeling and simulation of various battery chemistries for worst-case analysis of various series and parallel connections in the power packs. The work that we did for AFWERX provides a solid foundation and trajectory to complete the design work and adapt the design to the specific subsystem monitoring nodes within the RPA and assisted by Northrop. Much of our other related work has been described in Journal publications and our book published by Wiley on Prognostics Health Management.  Ridgetop is an AS9100D certified organization, and staffed with a hand-picked staff of experienced engineers.