Augmented Reality-Enhanced Corrosion Control System (ARECCS)

Enhanced Inspection

Sustainment operations need the latest Corrosion Control systems to perform work effectively and efficiently in support of the warfighter. In addition, as Corrosion Control systems evolve and become integrated on the shop floor to AR/VR technology, there is a risk that using these systems becomes burdensome to a user who must learn how to use multiple systems, experience a different look and feel of data, and learn to use different AR/VR hardware and software.

• Sustainment involves regular upkeep and scheduled inspections in the depot.
• Sustainment can also be reactive since it is done after a vehicle has become grounded for repair.
• Corrosion Detection systems typically cannot save results and have widely varying interfaces for results data.
• Results data cannot be exported or viewed on different platforms.
• Remote support is either impossible or unwieldy.
• Delays caused by problems that could have been detected earlier in the sustainment process, or factored into repair planning, can cause backups at the depot and additional downtime for an aircraft, impacting Complex performance, throughput, flow days, and revenue.

Advanced tools, machines, knowledge, and skills are needed to resolve maintenance issues in order to address and reduce aircraft corrosion that eventually causes maintenance to be delayed. Additionally, advanced AR tools provide an opportunity for better training, as stored results can be shared as After Action Review (AAR) learning material for the sustainment professional as well as larger groups.

ARECCS leverages existing, proven technologies to power a new results application, presenting data in primary form factors used in the field—AR headsets and tablets. Based on the deep knowledge and experience of the ARCS team in developing AR-integrated Corrosion Control systems, ARCS developed an AR application for reviewing scan results data. End users now easily review sets of data from different Corrosion Control systems that were taken on a single aircraft, with data tagged to the aircraft as well as a digital twin of that aircraft. Additionally, we developed a new Corrosion Control application for Visual Inspection, leveraging our experience in adding manual data tagging.

ARECCS records and presents data in a common user interface from multiple Corrosion Control systems:
1. Paint thickness, using Luna Terametrix
2. Eddy Current I-Plane, using Nortec 600 Eddy Current Flaw Detector
3. Eddy Current C-Scan, using Uniwest EVi Advanced Eddy Current Flaw Detector
4. Eddy Current Array, using Uniwest Evi ECA
5. Visual inspection, which is very important to the end user

ARECCS is a production-ready system. ARCS’ customers are already requesting additional Corrosion Control systems be added, which is a straightforward process in most cases, as the system was designed to allow for the regular addition of new systems.