(Washington, D.C.) Perhaps engine rotations on an Abrams tank experience a potentially critical malfunction while conducting a high risk-combat mission, or a fighter jet operates with electronic systems nearing a point of operational failure .. how can these impediments or potential problems be identified and quickly corrected?
Repair procedures, sustainment details and key parameters of what’s called condition based maintenance all need to be carefully monitored with a vigilant eye to both ensure safe and effective functionality and reduce costs.
Industry and the military services are increasingly looking to AI-enabled “augmented reality” technology to perform these critical functions to lower costs and massively streamline these essential functions.
“On average, 70 cents on the dollar over the life cycle of a program is spent on sustainment and operations,” said Stacy A. Cummings during a keynote address today before the 2021 Logistics Officer Association Symposium, according to a Pentagon report. “With this in mind, we must continue to emphasize the importance of designing for sustainment in order to reduce the demand for logistic support and maximize the availability of systems over their long life cycles.”
With computer-automated Augmented Reality technology, Fast-emerging technical details, needed repair data, sudden malfunction information and even anticipated points of failure can instantly be sent to and bounced off of, analyzed and compared against a vast, seemingly limitless database containing millions of factual details and relevant points of reference specific to a given problem. Much of this pertains to what can be described as efforts to operate through a cyber-hardened network enabled by advanced algorithms described as Industry 4.0.
U.S. Military Industry 4.0
Technological and operational problems can be solved, potential solutions can be quickly identified, optimal options or courses of responsive action can be determined and recommended, near real-time analytics can take place and otherwise disparate pools of pertinent data can be gathered, organized and integrated … all enabling human decision-makers to take immediate corrective action regarding a particular maintenance, sustainment or operational issue related to a platform or technology.
Such are the benefits of emerging AI and the “internet of things” empowered Industry 4.0, a fast-evolving technical process able to exponentially expedite and streamline repair, sustainment and training processes for military platforms.
