Design of a system for Aircraft Fuselage Inspection

The average age of commercial aircraft operating domestic flights in the United States is 10.7 years and continues to increase. Advances in robotics and imaging technologies show potential to reduce costs, time and to improve quality of fuselage inspections. A stochastic simulation was developed to evaluate the inspection process. The simulation represents differences in inspection techniques for components of the aircraft, such as the landing gear compared to the lap-splice panels, by categorizing the aircraft with ten representative regions. Simulation results indicates a decrease in the time required to complete inspection while simultaneously improving the overall quality in crack detection by the use of emerging non-destructive inspection technologies in aircraft maintenance: non-contact laser-ultrasonic (average savings of 43.28 minutes per section per inspection), synthetic aperture imaging drone (average savings of 45.60 minutes), and thermographic robotic crawler (crack detection rate increase of 54% with an average increase of 26.86 minutes per section). Using a utility hierarchy focused on performance, safety, and ability to implement, the most viable technological alternatives rank: non-contact laser-ultrasonic with a utility value of 0.824, human inspector with a utility of 0.811, synthetic aperture imaging with a utility of 0.783, and thermographic robotic crawler with a utility of 0.748. Based on the simulation results and utility analysis, it is recommended that MRO facilities implement non-contact laser ultrasonic technology as a method to scan the exterior of their aircraft to detect widespread fatigue damage.