Automated Aircraft Inlet Coating (A2IC) System

ABSTRACT: RE2, Inc. proposes a novel design, based on several mature technologies, for an Automated Air Inlet Coating (A2IC) system to recoat damaged or worn air inlets of performance aircraft. This innovative design will significantly reduce downtime between aircraft overhauls, reduce worker injuries, and provide uniform coating to the repaired inlets. Utilizing a fast, accurate, manipulator to perform multiple functions offers a low-cost, reliable tool for automatically coating air inlets. The manipulator will be able to rapidly map the complex geometry of an air inlet, map the thickness of the inlet"s coating to determine which areas need to be addressed, and precisely recoat those areas, if not the entire area of the duct. By allowing the manipulator to be easily repositioned via a mobile base, it is anticipated that the proposed A2IC system can be used both in a depot environment as well as a forward-deployed environment, providing a single cost-effective solution. BENEFIT: With the draw down in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with a waning defense budget, the USAF will have to do more with less. One viable and likely path forward is maintaining aircraft in the inventory, versus procuring new aircraft, driving the need for the ability to maintain aircraft even at the depot level, and ideally, in the field. The A2IC system presented in this proposal is an enabling technology to meet this increased maintenance need.