Simulation Environment for the Development and Testing of Immunity-Based Aircraft Failure Detection Schemes

In this paper, a simulation environment is presented developed at West Virginia University (WVU) for the design and testing of integrated schemes for aircraft sub-system failure detection, identification, and evaluation based on the artificial immune system (AIS) paradigm. The simulation environment includes: a non-linear mathematical model of a supersonic military aircraft, implementation of a large variety of failures and damages of aircraft actuators, sensors, structure, and propulsion system, advanced computational tools for off-line AIS detector generation and optimization, a general framework for AIS-based detection schemes, interface with visualization software for desk-top computer simulation, interface with the WVU 6-degrees-of-freedom motion-based flight simulator, and a set of detailed interactive menus for design and simulation scenario setup.The use of the simulation environment is illustrated through an example of an AIS failure detection, identification, and evaluation scheme based on a hierarchical multi-self approach.