The Use of UAV with Infrared Camera and RFID for Airframe Condition Monitoring

Abstract

The new progressive smart technologies announced in the fourth industrial revolution in aviation—Aviation 4.0—represent new possibilities and big challenges in aircraft maintenance processes. The main benefit of these technologies is the possibility to monitor, transfer, store, and analyze huge datasets. Based on analysis outputs, there is a possibility to improve current preventive maintenance processes and implement predictive maintenance processes. These solutions lower the downtime, save manpower, and extend the components’ lifetime; thus, the maximum effectivity and safety is achieved. The article deals with the possible implementation of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with an infrared camera and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) as two of the smart hangar technologies for airframe condition monitoring. The presented implementations of smart technologies follow up the specific results of a case study focused on trainer aircraft failure monitoring and its impact on maintenance strategy changes. The case study failure indexes show the critical parts of aircraft that are subjected to damage the most. The aim of the article was to justify the need for thorough monitoring of critical parts of the aircraft and then analyze and propose a more effective and the most suitable form of technical condition monitoring of aircraft critical parts. The article describes the whole process of visual inspection performed by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with an IR camera and its related processes; in addition, it covers the possible usage of RFID tags as a labeling tool supporting the visual inspection. The implementations criteria apply to the repair and overhaul small aircraft maintenance organization, and later, it can also increase operational efficiency. The final suggestions describe the possible usage of proposed solutions, their main benefits, and also the limitations of their implementations in maintenance of trainer aircraft.

Internal Damage Detection of Composite Structures Using Passive RFID Tag Antenna Deformation Method: Basic Research

“…To improve efficiency and gain a competitive advantage, major airports and airlines adopted RFID technology, which was developed and used as an early-stage technology on the Internet of Things (IoT) [22]-a core technology of the fourth industrial revolution. The airports and airlines used RFID in various processes [23]: baggage handling and tracking [24], monitoring of individual aircraft parts and supply chains [25,26], and as health monitoring systems [26][27][28][29].…”

SORA Methodology for Multi-UAS Airframe Inspections in an Airport

“…Additionally, the realtime video feed to the ground-based controller, which executes the defects detection algorithm, increased the detection probability of potential hazards of the airframe [20]. In [21], the authors used a long-wave infrared camera mounted on the UAV to identify the structural and surface damage of a trainer aircraft airframe. In addition, the authors proposed a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)-based inspection framework to identify the electronic failure caused by a faulty screw or rivet.…”

A RFID-Integrated Framework for Tag Anti-Collision in UAV-Aided VANETs

“…There have been some works about RFID-integrated UAV-aided networks [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Currently, Buffi et al in [11] presented a drone-based UHF-RFID tag identification scheme, which can be applied in indoor scenarios and VANET environments.…”

“…RFID-integrated UAV systems can collect three-dimensional (3D) environmental parameters by flying [13]. Inspired by these, the authors in [14][15][16] realized the technical solution of an RFID tag and reader mounted on a UAV.…”

“…Nevertheless, there are still some open problems that remain to be further investigated. First, the proposed RFID-integrated UAVaided networks in [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] consider the flexibility of UAVs but ignore the characteristics of the dense RFID environment, such as the adaptive power control for the reader. Moreover, the designed tag anti-collision schemes in [27][28][29][30][31][32] are usually based on the conventional single frequency tags, which leave multifrequency tags out of consideration.…”