Patent ID: 8386121

Claim:
A method of optimizing the estimated performance and estimated condition of an engine comprising: estimating a plurality of engine parameters based on a plurality of sensor inputs, wherein said engine parameters include a set of health parameters and a set of performance parameters, and wherein the number of health parameters in said set is greater than the number of sensors; determining a relationship between said set of health parameters and a tuning vector, wherein said tuning vector is a linear combination of said entire set of health parameters; determining at least one state equation in terms of said tuning vector; solving said at least one state equation to determine an estimate for said set of health parameters; estimating said performance parameters based on said health parameter estimates; calculating the error in said estimation of said health parameters and said performance parameters; optimizing said relationship between said tuning vector and said set of health parameters based on said error calculation; determining an optimized tuning vector based on said optimized relationship; determining at least one optimized state equation in terms of said optimized tuning vector; solving said at least one optimized state equation to determine an optimized estimate of said engine parameters.