By David Maisson

Much of the U.S. military’s fleet - from ships and aircraft to ground vehicles - has been in service for decades and requires ongoing sustainment to remain mission-capable. These weapon system platforms are composed of complex mechanical and electrical systems, many of which are connected to sensors for continuous monitoring. However, critical components often lack sensors of their own, creating large blind spots where issues can remain undetected until they result in system failure. This places missions and personnel at risk and leads to prolonged downtime for diagnostics and repairs.

Shift5 addresses this challenge by tapping into the existing operational data generated by surrounding monitored systems. By using this available sensor data to deliver predictive maintenance insights, Shift5 closes the readiness gap and helps ground crews stay ahead of emerging maintenance needs.

Hidden Barriers to Mission Readiness

Time- and usage-based deterioration, combined with unobservable system behaviors onboard weapon platforms, presents significant problems for sustainment. Traditional Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS) rely solely on direct, sensor-based monitoring. This approach fails to provide full visibility into all onboard components that can experience mechanical degradation.

Reactive maintenance is already costly and time-consuming, and diagnosing issues in systems that lack direct sensors will only exponentiate those costs. Readiness relies on a platform’s availability and capability; waiting for unmonitored systems to fail without near real-time visibility poses a significant risk to operational execution.

Sensing the Unknown: Modeling Unobserved Systems

But what if there was a way to monitor degradation - even on unobserved systems - and anticipate their future failure?

Operational vehicles are highly integrated systems where airspeed is not independent of altitude, and velocity is not independent of engine temperature or RPMs. These seemingly independent features share intrinsic statistical relationships: observing the behaviors of one feature can provide insights into others. Even unsensored systems are built to known specifications. This means that the sensors that do exist can help us model the performance of components that have none. The surrounding systems act as a constellation of proxies, allowing us to measure what was previously unmeasurable.

At Shift5, we have built a suite of core capabilities that allow us to:

• Record sensor data simultaneously across a vehicle's systems at fast sampling rates.
• Translate that data into its semantic layers.
• Aggregate it into mission-resolved snapshots.

Our proprietary Feature Matrix uses this bespoke time-series data to find patterns in system behaviors. By modeling what "normal" looks like across sensored systems, we can calculate the drift between expected and observed values. This observable drift points back to the performance of the non-sensored components. Flagging these signs of degradation empowers ground crews with the foresight required to proactively diagnose, repair, and replace critical components before a failure occurs.

Anticipating Maintenance Failures with Shift5

These solutions are not theoretical exercises; they are real tools built for the warfighter. Shift5 has developed and validated capabilities for gauging the degradation of both sensored and unsensored systems, during and post-mission.

With Shift5, maintainers and ground crew personnel can:

• Address safety risks by receiving near real-time alerts when a system’s behavior indicates dangerous degradation levels.
• Improve readiness rates by tracking system performance over time to anticipate the likelihood of system failure.
• Shorten downtime by diagnosing degraded systems with forensic investigation tools.

Additionally, decision-makers gain a fleet-wide view of their platforms' operational status to inform strategic-level planning.

This combination of tactical repair capabilities and strategic, fleet-wide visibility couldn't come at a better time. We are at a critical moment for predictive maintenance solutions to make a significant impact on sustainment. Legacy weapons systems, which serve as the foundation of defense operations, can be powerfully modernized with minimal new hardware. They already provide a wealth of operational data that can be leveraged to meaningfully bolster readiness.

At Shift5, we deeply believe that the operational data generated by these systems has the power to transform safety, security, and readiness. As we look to the future of sustainment, we see predictive maintenance as a force multiplier with largely unbounded potential - a set of solutions that will pay for themselves many times over in dollars, hours, and lives.

Interested in contributing to our national defense? View our job openings at shift5.io/careers.