What is the Doctoral Symposium?
The Doctoral Symposium is a great opportunity for students currently pursuing a PhD. in the fields of diagnostics, prognostics, or condition-based maintenance to present their research proposals. It takes place as part of the annual conference of the Prognostics and Health Management Society. Students receive feedback on their work through a panel of experts. The session is open to all conference participants though, so everyone can give feedback and ideas to the students.
Is your PhD relevant to the PHM field?
My PhD focuses on wind turbine gearbox diagnostics; I use condition monitoring data, apply advanced signal processing techniques and try to predict incipient faults before they become catastrophic failures using machine learning techniques. It definitely belongs under the large umbrella of PHM applications.
How did you find out about this PhD symposium?
I attended the annual conference of the PHM society 2017 in St Petersburg in Florida where I presented some preliminary results of my work in a paper titled "Wind Turbine Intelligent Gear Fault Identification". I accidentaly ended up in the doctoral symposium session and I was really impressed by the level of feedback the PhD students received on their work. I really wanted to participate and therefore I applied for next year's symposium and luckily I got accepted.
Is this trip funded?
Yes! Selected full-time students receive free registration and a travel subsidy of up to $1500. This is enough to cover all costs. I feel it's the best thing the PHM society can do to invest in the younger generation and early stage career researchers.
How was your experience when you participated in the Doctoral Symposium?
It was a really useful experience! I had the opprtunity to present my work in front of a wide audience and I got feedback from a diverse panel of experts in the PHM field. A lot of people from both industry and academia approached me to discuss more on the topic and exchange ideas. Also, I became friends with my fellow participants in the Doctoral Symposium. It's always nice to see similar methodologies applied in different areas; for example some of them where working on aircraft faults orvehicle health management. Some techniques are very transferable and we all learned from each other. At the same time we explored the city of Philadelphia and had lots of fun!
What are your thoughts on the PHM Conference?
Sometimes conferences tend to be too academic, however the PHM conference has a strong presence from industry. There are also very interesting workshops, panel sessions and product showcases. It's specific to PHM but at the same time there is so much variety due to the wide range of applications. The conference attendees seem to be returning year after year and it feels like everyone is part of a family. Also, all papers are made open access, which is really important for knowledge sharing.
What's next?
The 11th annual conference of the PHM Society is taking place this September in Arizona! I can't wait to learn all about the latest trends and advancements in PHM, network with people I already know and make new contacts. I'm also part of the organizing commitee and I'm really happy to be involved.
Any advice to other students working on the PHM field?
Definitely apply to the Doctoral Symposium session, it's an amazing opportunity! Also, this year poster sessions have been introduced for students, it's a great way to showcase your research!
Find out more about the PHM Society, the relevant conferences, journal and doctoral symposium in https://www.phmsociety.org/
