Which one, when? — Prognostics is achievable

The developing expectation of mission supportability and the desire for knowledge of Remaining Useful Life (RUL) drive the need for prognostics - the ability to know in advance which unit will fail and when. This paper discusses how prognostics - the ability to predict the remaining useful life of an item - has become achievable and what this means for the world of reliability for the military. Current and developing prognostic techniques for digital and analog communication electronics are described including canary techniques, physics of failure models, health and usage monitoring systems, and statistical and parametric precursors for electronics.