Aircraft wiring fault evaluation based on modeling and parameter identification

Wiring problems have been a critical safety issue with aging aircraft. Most existing wiring diagnostic methods are implemented via additional devices such as transmitters, receivers or dedicated sensors, which may hold back their practicability under certain circumstances. In this paper, attempts are made from the point of view of circuit modeling and parameter identification to evaluate wiring faults with signals produced by the circuit involving the faulty wire itself. Wires of the load circuit are modeled as cascades of T-type equivalent circuits, and deviations of the load system parameters may reflect wiring faults. Circuit model with consideration of single wiring fault is developed, and the identifiability of the parameters related to the fault is analyzed. Simulations are performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method on parallel fault detection, and the results are presented with in-depth discussions.