Advanced Maintenance Process and Engineering Digitalization (AMPED)

Advanced/Additive Manufacturing

Focus Area

Depot modernization integrating additive manufacturing (AM) and Virtual Test Stand (VTS) within an Advanced Maintenance Process and Engineering Digitalization (AMPED) framework. The focus is a digital sustainment thread enabling test modernization and rapid qualification of AM replacement components for aging defense systems.

Problem Statement

• Defense systems rely on aging electronic and mechanical components that must remain operational long after original parts, materials, and test environments become obsolete. Replacement parts increasingly require reverse engineering and AM, yet incomplete technical data and undocumented behavior hinder validation.
• Legacy ATE, TPS, and documentation often lack fidelity, creating parallel challenges: reconstructing system behavior, validating test procedures, and establishing trust in new components. Limited access to physical test stations further delays validation.
• These inefficiencies increase engineering effort, extend cycle time, and delay return-to-service. The absence of an integrated approach linking AM production, test validation, and sustainment evidence reduces readiness.

Innovation Solution

• AMPED integrates VTS with AM workflows to create a model-based sustainment process. Legacy tester behavior is captured as controlled digital evidence while missing data is reconstructed.
• Virtual tester models compare legacy results, simulated responses, and AM component performance. Unlike traditional methods relying on physical testing, this enables pre-validation in a virtual environment, reducing iteration time.
• A digital thread links design, test, and sustainment. Test sequences and components are validated virtually before using limited physical resources, producing traceable evidence packages. The approach is non-vendor-specific and integrates with existing ATE, deployable incrementally.

Benefits to the DoD

• Improves readiness by accelerating replacement and validation of obsolete components.
• Faster AM qualification (30–50% cycle-time reduction)
• Reduced reliance on legacy test assets
• Increased depot throughput
• Improved data traceability and confidence
• Applicable across all services and DLA.

Innovation Challenges

• Challenges include AM certification, model fidelity, data gaps, and virtual-to-physical correlation. Mitigated through incremental validation, baseline correlation, and controlled digital artifacts.

Technical Maturity / Demonstration

• Prototyped and demonstrated on representative avionics and electronic subsystem test cases, with VTS models correlated to physical data. Current maturity is TRL 5, targeting TRL 6.
• Evaluation will measure cycle-time reduction, reduced rework, improved data readiness, repeatability, and user acceptance. Physical testing is optimized, not replaced by shifting early validation to a controlled virtual environment.