Intermittent Fault Detection Technology Pilot Implementation for U.S. Air Force (USAF)/Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC)
NCMS Project #: 140894
Problem: The Department of Defense (DoD)/United States Air Force (USAF) is currently challenged by the inability to detect and isolate faults in aircraft wiring bundles and Weapon Replaceable Assembly (WRA)/Line Replaceable Units (LRUs). These faults include opens and shorts, degraded and intermittent signals, and insulation degradation. The magnitude of the challenge is daunting, with the DoD spending approximately $2 billion annually just removing and replacing WRAs/LRUs that, when tested, are determined to be “no-fault-found (NFF).”
Benefit: The adoption of the advanced technological capability contained in VIFD is to identify and then eliminate intermittent NFF resulting in a positive benefit for the general public. The commercial aviation industry wastes $250,000 per year per aircraft due to undetected unrepaired intermittent NFF, which equates to roughly $40 million per year for commercial carriers. Through this collaboration project Air Force Material Command will realize a significant return on investment as it utilizes this advanced diagnostic capability to detect, isolate and repair the root cause of intermittence in A-10 wiring harnesses.
Solution/Approach: The purpose of this collaboration is to pilot a use case of the Voyager Intermittent Fault Detector (VIFD) for the USAF’s A-10 fleet at a Repair Network Integration (RNI) node/field maintenance location to detect and repair/resolve intermittent faults that are unnecessarily driving A-10 avionics/electronic countermeasure system/other aircraft wiring harnesses back to depot-level for test/diagnostic/repair action.
Impact on Warfighter:
- Improved readiness
- Increased safety
- Decreased maintenance costs
DOD Participation:
- U.S. Air Force, Warner Robins
- U.S. Air Force, Hill
Industry Participation:
- Universal Synaptics
- NCMS
Benefit Area(s):
- Cost savings
- Repair turn-around time
- Maintenance avoidance and reliability
- Maintenance management improvement
- Improved readiness
Focus Area:
- Business processes/partnerships