Boeing AR Inspection
Product designer, Project lead, Video Director/Editor
Project Objective
The goal of this project was to design and develop a proof of concept that demonstrated how AR/VR technologies might be able to simplify and streamline the aircraft maintenance process, reducing turnaround time and maintenance delay costs.
We also wanted to evaluate the Hololens vs the iPad as platforma for AR in aviation and to help drive investment into AR/VR technologies.
Design Solution
The core use case for our initial proof of concept was to simplify the process of identifying and marking up external damage to aircraft. Currently pilots and mechanics need to refer to paper documentation or iPad images to review external damage and verify whether it is new or old and if all appropriate repairs have been completed.
We were able to overlay exiting damage onto the skin of an aircraft based on existing damage coordinates and add new data points to the system using an AR/VR experience. We leveraged the Hololens to show a new approach to maintenance activities, completely hands free mechanics could easily identify and review existing damage and repairs.
Using the camera and image recognition, we simplified the process for documenting new damage, increased the accuracy of new damage placement and looked to image recognition and analysis to calculate damage severity and determine if the damage needed to be repaired immediately. The ARKit on the iPad to showed how the same type of AR/ VR functionality could be integrated with existing iPad apps for mechanics and pilots. While the experience was not as immersive, the ability to use existing apps and hardware while still leveraging image recognition and AR/VR capabilities proved very compelling to potential customers.
Results
We were able to demo both concepts to airline customers who were very interested in how these technologies could help streamline maintenance activities and leverage AI tools to ensure accuracy of damage estimates. We were also able to use this relatively simple use case to start the conversation on other opportunities for leveraging AR/VR technologies within the maintenance space and are looking to develop product offerings in this space over the next year.
