AR-Based Solution to Improve Aircraft Maintenance

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The dynamic and variable nature of the aircraft maintenance and inspection environment brings challenges to implementing object and photo recognition to determine discrepancies in aircraft harness and other parts installation. These variances in the environment could include different lighting conditions, personnel and support equipment movement and multiple aircraft configurations. Maintainer errors can be highly expensive or life-threatening. Moreover, time-to-maintain is often insufficient to support aircraft readiness. 

Augmented Reality (AR) can provide a solution to capture and adjust through the use of machine learning.

The US Navy is purchasing a new technology that will support aircraft wiring maintenance for the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) Boeing V-22 Osprey aircraft. 

The Simplified, Intelligent AR Quality Assurance (SIA-QA) solution was developed by AVATAR Partners, specializing in virtual, augmented and mixed reality (extended reality or XR, collectively) software solutions for heavy-duty industry and defense. 

This AR-based, automatic QA system combines instruction and AI-based performance assessment in a single solution to help inspectors rapidly observe “as-is” versus “should be” conditions to speed installation and increase accuracy.

The solution includes refresher training for aircraft maintenance technicians who have completed tours of duty away from the system for which they were trained, according to industryweek.com.