A*STAR I2R’s AVIA featured on ChannelNewsAsia
03 Feb 2018
Prelude to the Singapore Airshow 2018, A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (A*STAR I2R) 's Automated Visual Inspection of Aircraft (AVIA) was one of the technologies featured by ChannelNewsAsia and Channel 5 News.
AVIA is an automated pre-flight visual inspection solutions that scan the aircraft surface and automatically identify observable defects using mobile and fixed cameras. This enables inspections of areas of the aircraft that may be difficult for an engineer to reach, while allowing for greater accountability in the documentation of defects. Importantly, this technical solution is not designed to take the engineer out of the picture, but rather help them pinpoint potential defect locations.
The training and test bedding of AVIA has been conducted at the Air Transport Training College (ATTC) over the last 2 years. Part of the testing at ATTC is to explore the optimal position of the imaging cameras relative to the aircraft surface, using a portable mast structure. Other aspects have been to train the development of vision algorithms to improve the accuracy, and the reduction in the number of false detections.
Future work will encompass the expansion on the range of defects that can be detected (e.g. dents and lightning strikes), in addition to the type of aircraft.