Development of RFID Enabled Aircraft Maintenance System

Recently, US federal aviation administration (FAA) have formally approved the use of passive radio frequency identification tags on individual airline parts. Air bus and Boeing proposed amending the ATA's Specification 2000 to include the use of ISO 18000-3 (13.56 MHz) and 18000-6 (UHF). They also announced plans to develop a single RFID specification to be used by both companies to use RFID tags to identify commercial aircraft parts. This decision will drive a wide adoption of RFID technology in aviation industry. In this paper, we present a RFID enabled aircraft maintenance system which could be integrated with inventory control system and aircraft scheduling system to ensure on time performance and safety of passenger and cargo. We believe our study would give a good guideline for further researches on RFID application in the aviation industry and aircraft part manufacturing industry.