Date of Award
3-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Department of Systems Engineering and Management
First Advisor
David R. Jacques, PhD
Abstract
Aircraft require frequent inspections to perform their missions safely. Current visual inspection methods are time-consuming and dangerous for inspection personnel, but they are necessary to spot flaws that could endanger the aircraft during flight. This research explores a set of methods for transforming a set of target inspection criteria into camera specifications that will allow a UAS aircraft inspection system to perform inspections on the top skin of an aircraft. Given the minimum distance for the UAS to fly above the aircraft, minimum flaw size to search for on the aircraft, minimum number of pixels to display that flaw size, and the resolution of a camera to be assessed, the paper presents a series of calculations to find the minimum lens focal length needed to achieve the desired clarity and how long it would take to inspect an aircraft of a given size. Hover tests and motion tests using a camera with a focal length calculated with these methods provided clear imagery of a target minimum flaw size, validating the focal length calculation methods. In addition, a proof-of-concept UAS inspection system consisting of two Allied Vision Mako G-507B cameras running on a NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX developer kit was created. The inspection camera uses a zoom lens to observe flaws while the navigation camera uses a fisheye lens capable of multicasting to the Xavier and a ground station. Autonomous Navigation Center personnel will continue to iterate on this inspection system and integrate autonomous navigation capabilities and image search capabilities in pursuit of a fully viable system usable by aircraft inspectors.
AFIT Designator
AFIT-ENV-MS-24-M-181
Recommended Citation
Warren, Adam J., "Rotorcraft Assisted Aircraft Inspection System: Creation and Component Assessment" (2024). Theses and Dissertations. 7798.
https://scholar.afit.edu/etd/7798
Included in
Aviation Commons, Other Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons
Comments
A 12-month embargo was observed for posting this work on AFIT Scholar.
Distribution Statement A, Approved for Public Release. PA case number on file.