ARTSAM: Augmented Reality App for Tool Selection in Aircraft Maintenance

Abstract

Aircraft Maintenance is an advanced task requiring highly skilled engineers. Facilitating the Aircraft maintenance by providing proper tools and equipment is essential in ensuring good maintenance work. Aircraft Maintenance Technicians (AMTs) require precise knowledge and customized tools to perform their duties. They are responsible for an airplane’s safety and efficiency, and rely on a few basic pieces of equipment for a wide range of jobs pertaining to airplane maintenance. Specific maintenance tasks require unique tools. And while the AMTs could probably improvise and get the job done anyway, specialized tools exist for a reason–they help get the job done correctly and improvising will lead to unnecessary labor and a compromised aircraft. For example, an incorrectly sized screwdriver or screw causes wear and tear and makes the job harder. Besides, traditional tool management requires employees to manually check in and out each tool, which is time consuming. A Tool Selector app which recognises and tags tools in real time will help AMTs in determining how it is used in a particular task. Through this app, the AMTs can be guided through animations to perform specific tasks, such as replacement of Oil Filter from an aircraft engine. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.