The 412th Maintenance Group (MXG) at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) California selected the 412th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron’s Advanced Mobile Universal Electrical Tooling (AMUET) Team as the Annual Innovation Team Award Winner for 2020.

The Annual Innovation Team Award recognizes technologies ranked by the Selection Committee based on the positive impact a technology will have for the warfighter and national security.  The Selection Committee aims to elevate maintenance innovation to include not only new technology, hardware, and software but also unique partnerships, resourcing strategies, business practices, or processes that promise to make maintenance more capable, agile, and affordable.

The technology is the AMUET developed by the technology provider Solavitek, located in Canada.  The AMUET is a cost-effective wiring/electrical systems analysis tool designed as an alternative to conventional Automated Test Equipment (ATE) and handheld meters typically used at the Operational- (O) level.  The AMUET ATE consists of a ToughPad tablet and wireless handheld size automated testers connected to the aircraft with 24 inches serialized interface cables. The small footprint and ease of use of the wireless distributed test system means that it can be used by any DOD Service anywhere and anytime to validate the integrity and track degradation of aircraft wiring systems.  Having real-time data (by tail number) at the O-level is particularly useful for aircraft fleet sustainability when merged into a Conditioned Based Maintenance (CBM+) system to rapidly troubleshoot unsuspected electrical failures with the potential to identify necessary corrective action.

412 MXG test and evaluation center has already obtained the support of the F16 System Program Office and the Automated Test System Program Office at Warner Robins AFB to support this project. They will coordinate the validation of the new generation AMUET in different configurations and provide in a final report the recommendations on how it can be deployed with the different USAF and DOD services.

The AMUET project is a collaborative effort with the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) Commercial Maintenance Technology Activities (CTMA) program and OSD Foreign Comparative Testing programs.