ECE Team: 167     ME Team: 29

Sponsoring Organization: Sikorsky Aircraft

The goal of this project is to design a Wireless Test Sensor System to monitor the condition of the pitch change bearing in the tail rotor of a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter. Doing so will allow thehelicopter crew, or whomever is performing maintenance on the helicopter to reasonably assess the condition of the bearing inside the tail rotor without having to take apart the entire tail rotor transmission. As it is, the bearings have life expectancies provided by the manufacturer to predict when failure might occur, giving the crew an estimate of when it needs to be replaced, thus eliminating the chance for loss of control during flight. Having a sensor of this nature will allow the bearings to be easily monitored throughout their life, allowing Sikorsky to improve safety of the crew, and save on maintenance costs due to the difficult process of physically accessing this bearing.