Digital Thread Tools for Nondestructive Inspection Applications

Nondestructive Inspections (NDI) are a critical aspect of any aircraft structural integrity program and they are one of the primary requirements driving the United States Air Force (USAF) depot maintenance schedule. Current USAF NDI processes are largely manual, performed by a well-trained technician using a handheld tool. There is no method for automating the data capture and transfer of the critical inspection data to maintenance information systems. This leads to opportunities for missing data, lack of quality, non-standard reporting, and any overall lack of visibility to critical data that is required to effectively manage structural integrity. To compound the issue, quality assurance processes to ensure the correct aircraft locations are inspected are lacking, decreasing the Probability of Inspection (POI) which also increases maintenance costs. All of these factors cascade into increased inefficiencies. This program will develop the Smart Maintenance System (SMS) for nondestructive inspections, which will include retrofitting current USAF NDI tools with a spatial tracking sensor, automating the data capture from the NDI tool, providing location and process feedback to the technician (to ensure that the proper inspection process is being performed at the correct location on the structure), and outputting the data to a maintenance database.