Category Archives: Uncategorized

CellSage Battery Health Modeling Webinar: August 16, 2023

Ridgetop’s CellSage Battery Health Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis (MS&A) software platform is an advanced battery and cell aging simulation tool that represents over a decade of research in electrochemistry, physics, and thermodynamics. CellSage utilizes advanced diagnostics and predictive modeling techniques to achieve a better understanding of path-dependance aging, as well as providing critical simulation results that help our customers validate warranty periods, improve time to market for new battery powered systems, and optimize battery cycle life for both primary and second-use applications.

Join Ridgetop Group and special guest, Dr. Kevin L. Gering from Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to find out how the results and analysis provided by CellSage will benefit your battery R&D applications, and why the New Chemistry Import Feature has been identified as a revolutionary innovation that can accurately model arbitrary lithium-ion battery chemistries with limited upfront cycle life testing data.

Webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, August 16, 2023, at 10 AM PT (5:00 PM UTC).

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    Advanced Electrolyte Model Webinar: May 18, 2023

    The Advanced Electrolyte Model (AEM) developed at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is a proven software capability designed to explore molecular-to-macroscale level aspects of electrolyte behavior and can be used to drastically reduce the time required to characterize and optimize electrolytes. Although it is applied most frequently to Li-ion and Na-ion battery systems, it is general in its theory and can be used toward numerous other targets.

    Join Ridgetop Group and special guest, Dr. Kevin L. Gering from INL to find out how the results and analysis provided by AEM will help identify new electrolyte combinations for your unique applications.

    Webinar is scheduled for Thursday, May 18, 2023, at 11 AM PT (6:00 PM UTC).

    Miss the Webinar? Enter your contact information below and a Ridgetop Group Representative will get in touch to share the recorded slides and video.

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      New Sentinel Motion Pilot Study Announcement with Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad and Innovative Operations Technology

      Ridgetop Group Announces New Sentinel Motion Pilot Study with Reading Blue Mountain and Northern (RBMN) Railroad and Innovative Operations Technology (IOT)

      Tucson, Arizona, April 10, 2023

      Ridgetop Group, Inc. (Ridgetop) and Innovative Operations Technology (IOT) are excited to announce a joint pilot study program with Reading Blue Mountain and Northern (RBMN) Railroad in Port Clinton, PA. Together, Ridgetop and IOT are testing and evaluating the latest design upgrades for Ridgetop’s Sentinel Motion for Rail technology. This innovative on-board monitoring technology utilizes the Internet-of-Things to connect wireless smart sensors to a complete data acquisition and diagnostics software platform that monitors bearings, wheels, and track conditions in the railroad industry. Sentinel Motion offers substantial benefits when compared to traditional wayside hot-box detection systems that only detect failure modes after they have already occurred. Ridgetop’s approach to use onboard monitoring, cloud connectivity, and advance vibration analysis methods has been proven to detect wheel and bearing failures well in advance and can help prevent catastrophic derailments.

      Through this pilot study program, Ridgetop and IOT are planning to demonstrate how Sentinel Motion can be used to support the transition from reactive or preventative maintenance to Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) based on physical evidence of degradation. Such information, diagnostics, and alerts can be easily integrated into other software platforms, and complements both companies’ commitment to providing railroad operators with new technologies that improve safety, maintenance, and operational readiness of their rail assets.

      Click here to find out more information on the product application page and get in contact with a Ridgetop Group Representative.

      Nighthawk No Fault Found Banner

      The Industry’s Best Solution For No Fault Found

      NightHawk™ was developed to solve the problem of “No Fault Found” (NFF) instances in electronic subsystems in aircraft.  NFFs occur when a performance problem exists, but conventional testing does not find or indicate a problem.  Initially developed, tested and validated on the Air Force VDATS system,  NightHawk™ was subsequently implemented into various Automated Test Equipment (ATE) clusters.  NightHawk functionality can be ported to the Navy’s eCASS platform to provide additional tools to improve test coverage of key electronic subsystems in Naval Aircraft to provide modern test and logging data analytic tools to handle aging aircraft problems and prolong the sustainability of the fleet.

      NightHawk can significantly reduce the Mean-Time-to-Repair (MTTR) – up to 60% – by pinpointing the specific electronic circuit boards that are defective, but still pass the legacy TPS tests.  NightHawk can benefit both the military (NAVAIR, Air Force, Army Aviation) as well as commercial aircraft fleet operators such as FedEx World Services and other commercial airlines.

      NightHawk Enhancements to Conventional Automated Test Equipment Shortcomings
      Test program sets (TPSs) currently used to test and debug electronic problems on aircraft are largely developed by OEMs that support acceptance requirements of their subsystems decades earlier.  With operation of the aircraft over decades in harsh environments, encompassing shock, vibration, lightning strikes and temperature extremes, the components in the subsystems can drift from their original values.  These variations can cause “soft faults” that go undetected by the original TPS, so NightHawk was developed to root-out these difficult-to-detect performance anomalies using advanced anomaly detection.

      These analysis capabilities rely on time and frequency-domain test software for thorough analysis of aging avionics and weapon systems that have been subjected to harsh environments, failures caused by parameter drift, and component degradation, all of which can result in elusive, intermittent ‘soft faults’ that negatively impact the mission objective and increase lifecycle maintenance costs.
      Nighthawk Flowchart

      Publication of Essays Honoring Ridgetop Researcher, Dr. Szidarovszky

      Optimization and Dynamics with Their ApplicationsAccording to Doug Goodman, CEO of Ridgetop, “We are very fortunate to have such a World-Renowned Researcher and key contributor having the background and depth of knowledge in our field of advanced diagnostics and prognostics.  His technical leadership has helped Ridgetop expand its integrated vehicle health management (IVHM) tools to new government and commercial markets.”  Szidar was instrumental in developing special algorithms to support detection of “No Fault Found”, or NFF conditions on critical aircraft systems.

      Dr Szidarovszky is presently working in the determination of “effective age” of electronic modules that may include a combination of new, old or aged components.  Effective age plays a major role in the determination of State-of-Health (SoH) and Remaining Useful Life (RUL) that can support Condition Based Maintenance (CBM+) programs on complex systems such as aircraft, autos and industrial equipment.  His paper, “A New Method to Estimate Expected Number of Failures for Allocating Spare Parts and Labor”, will be presented at IEEE Autotestcon September 14, 2017 in Schaumburg, Illinois.

      Dr Ferenc SzidarovskyAt Ridgetop, Dr. Szidarovszky was instrumental in the development of the NightHawk™ algorithm library that is being applied to reducing “No Fault Found” (NFF) instances. NightHawk has been successfully applied on a variety of ATE platforms including the Air Force’s VDATS tester, and custom ATE clusters used for other purposes.

      Lately, Szidar has been focusing on developing new advanced algorithms and mathematically rigorous methods of handling subsystem assets with different aging or degradation profiles. This is a common situation found in aircraft, where subsystems are removed and replaced as wear and aging affect their performance.