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Advanced Mobile Universal Electrical Tooling (AMUET) Demonstration for Naval Maintenance and Sustainment

NCMS Project #: 142063

Problem: A good portion of vehicle maintenance costs are attributed to finding anomalies associated with complex electrical systems.  The installation of electrical harnesses in a ship along represent thousands of man-hours.  While numerous attempts have historically been made to provide Automated Test Equipment (ATE) to the shipyard installation of electrical harnesses, the complexity of the set-up investment in test programs with cable interfaces and loopback connectors often do not justify the return on investment.

Benefit: While this technology will be demonstrated using naval facilities as a proof of concept, the resulting deliverables will be applicable across a much wider range of air, land and sea craft production facilities, both inside and outside the DOD that want to integrate industry 4.0 standards within their maintenance and sustainment activities.

Solution/Approach: The project will introduce new AMUET technology combined with automated processes that can be deployed across the naval industry as standardized tooling to manage and accelerate both the installation and testing of all types of cables found on a ship.  The technology revolves around 4.0 digital manufacturing concepts and digital data infrastructure that can interface with many variations of existing software that is used by the industry.

Impact on Warfighter:

  • Analysis tool to troubleshoot and rapidly solve electrical system anomalies 
  • Reduce maintenance costs and expensive interruptions in workflow and productivity 
  • Increase safety 
  • Improve warfighter mission readiness and lethality 

DOD Participation:

  • Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PHNSY IMF)
  • Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNSY)
  • Trident Refit Facility (TRF) Bangor
  • Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA)
  • Supervisor of Shipbuilding (SUPSHIP)
  • U.S. Air Force (observer)
  • Department of Defense Foreign Comparative Testing (DOD FCT) (observer)

Industry Participation:

  • Solavitek Engineering Inc.
  • Austal USA
  • NCMS

Benefit Area(s):

  • Cost savings
  • Repair turn-around time
  • Safety
  • Improved readiness
  • Reliability improvement

Focus Area:

  • Enhanced inspection