Cognitive Technology for Advanced Maintenance

This proposal is a joint effort between Qualtech Systems, Inc. (Wethersfield, CT), BBN Technologies (Boston, MA) and Aptima, Inc. (Woburn, MA). Our intelligent and adaptive maintenance-aid software solution will provide novel capabilities to streamline the maintenance task for technicians of all levels of experience. We propose to significantly enhance and integrate a knowledge-based maintenance and diagnostic reasoning engine, with an agent based software architecture that supports cognitive reasoning, and a user interface with novel human factors support. The integrated system will provide a support tool that streamlines the maintenance task by guiding the user through the optimal test sequence, while providing context specific user interface options to the technician throughout the process. The system will adapt to constraints imposed by the environment, the skill level and preferences of the maintenance technician, and specifics of the maintenance problem at hand. The software will learn from interaction with the technician, allowing the knowledge base for the problem space to grow over time, and the efficiency of the maintenance process to increase with subsequent tasks. The emergent behavior of the maintenance software will make the tool appear as a domain and maintenance expert as it guides the technician through the maintenance process.