Intelligent Automated Eddy Current System for Monitoring the Aircraft Structure Condition

It is known that in the process of operation the materials of aircraft construction are exposed to significant mechanical loads and temperature changes (fluctuations) for a very short period of time. All this leads to various defects and damages to aircraft assemblies and units which need to be inspected for the safe operation of the aircraft, their assemblies, and units. In some cases, the implementation of inspection or diagnostic is accompanied by technical difficulties caused by the large size of-aircraft assemblies or units and limited access to their local places. In such conditions, it becomes especially important to provide the possibility of diagnostics in hard-to-reach places of the object.The problem can be solved by applying wireless technologies to transmit signals from the probes to the data processing units. This allows separating the probes unit and the analysis and decision-making unit in space, and simplifies the practical implementation of robotics scanning the surfaces of large assemblies and elements in hard-to-reach places.The article describes the developed intelligent wireless system for eddy current inspection of aircraft structural materials. A technique for processing and visualization information is proposed that can be used in inspection systems and intelligent decision-making when monitoring the state of large objects. The experimental results of scanning an object are presented as a distribution of the informative parameters values of the probing signal (amplitude, frequency and decrement) over the coordinates of the object.