Hangar in the cloud

February 1st 2018

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Airbus and Boeing have launched several important projects to showcase different approaches to intelligent systems solutions. Read More » At the Singapore Air Show, Airbus will be highlighting “The Hangar of the Future”, a joint project with Temasek Polytechnic University that is supported by the EDB and led by a Singapore team under Cyrille Schwob, Airbus Singapore’s head of research and technology development Asia-Pacific.

By essentially digitalising and rebooting the MRO business with data on systems, an aircraft’s status is analysed before the aircraft arrives at the MRO facility, “The Hangar of the Future” uses drones to run initial structural inspection, followed by autonomous intelligent systems and laser technology for closer non-destructive inspection. A data management system collects the information and assigns tasks to teams via mobile devices with paperless manuals. 3D printers will also manufacture some spare parts on the spot.

“The mechanic receives the information needed to carry out the required maintenance task on his tablet instead of running from one place to the other as is the case today,” Schwob told Orient Aviation. “The required full kit, including tools, parts, technical documentation and processes to follow, alrady will be gathered for him.”

Airbus believes some of the most impactful innovations lie in virtual, augmented and mixed reality (VR, AR and MR).François Guillaume, Hangar of the Future’s technical lead, describes AR and VR as the perfect technologies to build a bridge between physical products and the digital world. In the case of a technical emergency diversion to a remote location in Siberia, for example, AR would be a crucial way to guide technicians through an atypical repair.

“Maintaining an aircraft does not usually happen in a nice office with air-con and good light. You have time pressure, it’s dark, it’s raining and the operators themselves are trained on different aircraft. There are a lot of constraints,” Guillaume said.

Automated non-destructive testing, such as an inspection scan of the aircraft when it enters the hangar, will allow experts to concentrate on defect analysis and classification instead of searching for data. RFID tags will identify and track tools and parts.

The Internet of Things implementation will be interfaced with the supervision module in a control room to help operators and customers follow activities performed on the aircraft and anticipate modifications. Drones and robots such as Airbus’ Air-Cobot robot will obtain specific information, previously unattainable, such as aircraft structure, flight hours and issues accumulated over time.

“The whole challenge in ‘The Hangar of the Future’ project is building digital continuity between individual entities and technologies, so they seamlessly work together and talk to each other,” Schwob said.

“This is where Airbus brings value, acting as an all-time integrator of complex pieces, adding contextual ‘airplane manufacturer information’ and giving a global vision to a fragmented environment. It is about going from a task-after-task philosophy to a complete end-to-end, optimised process.”

Such innovation loops neatly with Skywise, Airbus’ open-data integration and advanced analytics platform, which was launched in collaboration with Palantir Technologies last year. Airbus will be announcing new Skywise adopters at the Singapore Air Show after it launched the project with several airlines, including AirAsia, Emirates Airlines, Hong Kong Airlines and Peach Aviation, last year.

Skywise wants to be the single platform of reference for every major airline to improve their operational performance and business results and to support their own digital transformation. It gives users a single access point to enriched data by aggregating sources into one cloud platform, including airline data such as spares consumption; components data; aircraft/fleet configuration; on-board sensor data; and flight schedules.

Other data traditionally shared with Airbus on isolated servers will migrate there to help airlines analyse and make decisions based on on-board aircraft data; post-flight, pilot and aircraft condition monitoring reports, operational interruption history, parts replacements, service bulletins and technical documentation and requests.

Skywise promises to improve fleet operational reliability by predictive and preventative maintenance, rapid root-cause analyses of in-service issues,optimising each aircraft’s performance from flight operations data analytics, one-click reporting workflows, including complex reporting to regulatory bodies. In a nutshell, Schwob said, Skywise will enable “a collective upgrade in competences for the whole aviation ecosystem”.