How to tell the good from the bad in failure prognostics methods

This paper describes a novel approach for evaluating the performance of failure prognostics solutions in the context of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM). The method is based on the use of probability integral transforms. It provides an easy way to compare different prognostics algorithms based on information from the actual times of observed failure events and the corresponding estimated probability densities resulting from the prognostics algorithms. The resulting information can be translated into an informative graphical form or a numerical index to compare the different solutions. The usefulness of the proposed methodology is illustrated with a sample application.