Welcome to the Signal Analysis Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center. We study the vibration signatures of helicopter transmissions using both operational helicopters and test stand transmissions. The overall goal is to develop information technology and advanced computational methods for diagnosing or predicting system component health in real-time. Anticipated benefits are to improve operational safety, lower field maintenance costs, and prolong effective aerospace mission operations.

The Laboratory is part of the Computational Sciences Division, Information Sciences Directorate, and is physically located in building N269, Room 281 at NASA Ames.

The laboratory is currently involved with a number of basic research enterprises involving the analysis of time-series vibration data. These consist of three major programs: ALBERT, Cobra and Kiowa.

ALBERT, Ames-Lewis Basic Experimentation in Real-Time, is a collaborative venture with NASA Glenn (formerly Lewis) Research Center to study vibrations signatures in an OH-58 transmission test stand.

The Cobra AH-1 is a NASA Ames research helicopter that has been instrumented for health-monitoring during flight. The helicopter carries a specially designed on-board data acquisition system, "HealthWatch", to gather data from a suite of sensors mounted on the gearbox.

. The Kiowa OH-58C is an Army helicopter on loan, minimally instrumented, to compare Glenn test-stand experience with an actual flying article.

The data gathered from both Cobra and Kiowa is being analyzed using ALBERT by the VibraTeam, a group of scientists and engineers at NASA Ames, NASA Glenn, with the assistance of Sigpro.