Nondestructive Inspection/Evaluation (NDI/E) Probe & Aircraft Structure Coordinate Mapping

Nondestructive evaluation and inspection (NDE/I) measurements are routinely performed on aircraft in the field and depot during maintenance and after repairs. Ensuring that these procedures have performed properly and completely, as well as enabling the efficient use and storage of the measurement data are critical to the sustainment mission. This effort addresses the US Air Force’s need to map and display the NDE/I measurement data with corresponding aircraft structure coordinate information. Specifically, this effort will create a software suite incorporating a centralized, flexible dynamic data architecture, and that supports clear visualization of sensor AND location data. The proposed architecture will be purposely designed as a general tool set that supports tracking and visualization of measured historic data. A critical piece of the proposed software suite is data visualization. Specifically, complex curvature is the norm in advanced aircraft structures, and this effort is initially focused on developing display tools that map NDE/I information into a 3-dimensional image that can be manipulated by a user to easily asses the condition of a component or aircraft.