Automated Fiber Optic Interconnect Cleaning and Inspection Involving Aerospace Platforms

MagiQ Technologies presents its concept called AFTICS – Automated Flight Terminus Inspection and Cleaning System. AFTICS will integrate our automated fiber terminus inspection capability with an imaging system able to rapidly gather and analyze images from multiple termini within any MIL-STD circular connector without the need to disconnect or manually align the imager. Upon processing these images, our system submits each terminus’s health classification code to our guided cleaning tool so that they can receive proper cleaning treatment. BENEFIT: AFTICS is designed to accelerate the cleaning and inspection of high density military fiber optic connectors on aircraft systems. This system will also remove the human factor from the inspection of these critical interconnects. The small rugged form factor and rapid characterization are expected to find applications to fiber optic systems in other areas of the military. The final product will not be limited to only MIL-STD-38999 style circular connectors. It can be easily modified to automate the cleaning and inspection of any style high density fiber optic connector, including rectangular format, through the use of appropriate adapters. This will allow the AFTICS system to apply to a wide variety of civilian and military markets including: high-bandwidth civil communication networks, emerging passenger avionics architectures, embedded building networks, air traffic control network grids, and land based transportation network systems.