Recorders, Reasoners and Artificial Intelligence - Integrated Diagnostics on Military Transport Aircraft

A research group at Boeing has developed a prototype for an Integrated Diagnostic System12 to optimize maintenance on military transport aircraft by decreasing maintenance costs and increasing aircraft availability. The Integrated Diagnostic System comprises an On-board Recorder, and a Ground-Based Reasoner that analyzes the recorded data, to optimize maintenance. The functions of the Ground-Based Reasoner (GBR) include identification of root-cause, filtering of false alarms, and prioritization of maintenance actions. The technologies used include expert systems/fast state recognition methods, data mining technologies and Bayesian analyses. The Ground-Based Reasoner provides an open plug-n-play software framework for incorporating these technologies into a software tool, for field maintenance. The tool has a simple, intuitive Graphic User Interface that is designed to help the end-user, the maintenance technician, with everyday maintenance tasks. The Integrated Diagnostic System prototype is currently undergoing testing on pre-delivery test flights for the C-17 military transport, at a Boeing facility, and initial results in applying the System to the Aerial Delivery Subsystem and the Hydraulic Subsystem are discussed.