Review Article
Prognostics and Health Management: A Review on
Data Driven Approaches
Kwok L. Tsui,
1
Nan Chen,
2
Qiang Zhou,
1
Yizhen Hai,
1
and Wenbin Wang
3,4
1
Department of System Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
2
Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117576
3
Donlinks School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
4
Faculty of Business and Law, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M15 6BH, UK
Correspondence should be addressed to Wenbin Wang; wangwb@.com
Received July ; Revised October ; Accepted October
Academic Editor: Shaomin Wu
Copyright © Kwok L. Tsui et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Prognostics and health management (PHM) is a framework that oers comprehensive yet individualized solutions for managing
system health. In recent years, PHM has emerged as an essential approach for achieving competitive advantages in the global
market by improving reliability, maintainability, safety, and aordability. Concepts and components in PHM have been developed
separately in many areas such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and statistical science, under varied names. In
this paper, we provide a concise review of mainstream methods in major aspects of the PHM framework, including the updated
research from both statistical science and engineering, with a focus on data-driven approaches. Real world examples have been
provided to illustrate the implementation of PHM in practice.
1. Introduction
To fulll the increasing demand on functionality and quality,
modern systems are oen built with overwhelming complex-
ities. ese systems are oen featured rich electronics and
intricate interactions among subsystems/components. For
example, a typical car consists of about , functional com-
ponents, , parts, and million lines of soware code
[].
Additionally, extremely high requirements of system
reliability are essential since a single failure can result in catas-
trophicconsequences.Despiteeveryeortmadeinthepast,
disasters keep occurring with profound implications. In June
, the Metro rail crash in Washington D.C. killed nine
people and injured dozens more, suspiciously due to sensor
circuit “anomalies” under the rail track []. Brazil blackouts
in November aected more than million people
andshutdowneverythingfromsubwaytolightbulbs[].
Despite the explanation attributed to lightning, wind, and
rain, it was still believed that “there was obviously some fail-
ure, either technical or human.” Other examples include the
failure of LED lighting system in Xiamen, China, two months
aer installation although the manufacturer promised ve
years’ lifespan of their products, not to mention the infamous
sudden acceleration failures of Toyota automobiles which
have signicantly damaged the company’s prot and reputa-
tion [].
In view of the high impact and extreme costs usually
associated with system failures, methods that can predict and
prevent such catastrophes have long been investigated. Appli-
cationsofdevelopedmethodsarenotrareindomainssuchas
electronics-rich systems, aerospace industries, or even public
health environment [, ]. In general, these methodologies
can all be grouped under the framework of prognostics and
health management (PHM). Particularly, prognostics is the
process of predicting the future reliability of a product by
assessing the extent of deviation or degradation of the prod-
uct from its expected normal operating conditions; health
management is the process of real time measuring, recording,
and monitoring the extent of deviation and degradation from
normal operation condition [, ]. Dierent from traditional
handbook based reliability prediction methods (e.g., U.S.
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2015, Article ID 793161, 17 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/793161