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Integrate a 3D Surface Scanner along with a high-definition camera on a drone to aid in Aircraft structural inspections to improve accuracy, accessibility, safety and aircraft maintenance turnover.
For an airline, aircraft structural inspections play a pivotal role in ensuring structural integrity and aerodynamic smoothness, making it critical for its daily operations to be run in a highly safe and efficient manner. Some of these structural inspections include but are not limited to, detailed inspection of aircraft skin waviness for aerodynamic smoothness, dents, lightning & bird strike inspections, corrosion & sealing inspections, loose/damaged fastener inspections along with damage classification and repair limits.
In this build project you will wear the hat of an airline maintenance engineer to explore use cases of integrating a 3D surface scanner to perform aircraft structural inspections. Under the supervision of an experienced industry expert, you’ll start by identifying gaps in traditional structural inspections, develop a solution and carry-out feasibility studies. You’ll become familiar with an airline maintenance program, manuals, 3D CAD modeling software, and FAA’s regulations. All this will happen in an environment that simulates the operations of a real airline maintenance engineering team.
Participants introduction and intro to an Airline Maintenance Program, Manuals & Structural Inspections
You will familiarize yourself with functionalities and types of a 3D surface scanner and choose one for our mission
You will calculate payload requirements for the drone, choose appropriate one for our mission, install a 3D CAD software of your choice, and import existing CAD model of the drone from online forums
You’ll start exploring various designs of mounting brackets for inspiration and start working on the design
Continue designing the bracket and integrate it with the imported drone model along with the camera
Understanding airspace requirements/regulations/restrictions, identify hazards with our design, develop risk mitigation strategies
Estimate R&D costs, Marketing Costs, & Operational Costs. List both qualitative and quantitative benefits
You’ll submit a detailed summary report along with a presentation. Discuss feedback/thoughts and share overall experience
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