Fault Prognosis of Transmit-receive Modules for Active Phased Array radar

Abstract

This paper analyses the failure mechanism of components in T/R module and presents a new method about the fault prognosis for T/R modules of radar systems. The function and failure pattern has been provided firstly. Then, we provide the possible failure mechanism and present the time-related formula to describe the time-to-failure model dominated by the fault character parameter. Then, a connection between the failure mechanism and failure rate is established through the coupling formulas and failure rate distributions. Given the predicted ambient temperature, the number prediction curve of failed T/R modules in the radar system is proposed. Based on the number calculation, the spare parts can be arranged in advance to decrease the unnecessary waiting time, supporting the implementation of condition-based maintenance for radar system.