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The US 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Construction Corps now has 110 million square feet of Davis-Mansons Air Force Base in Arizona using a system that combines Wi-Fi active RFID tags and GPS. This system uses AeroScoutu’s newly launched Unified Asset Visibility (UAV) solution, which will be officially launched in January 2009, and can locate assets in a wide area, even in remote areas where Wi-Fi access points are scarce.
Davis-Mansons Air Force Base is called the “cemetery”. It is a large base for the storage and maintenance of US Air Force aircraft. It has 4,400 aircraft and employs 550 workers. The aircraft arriving at the base can either be moved into inventory, or brought into the maintenance area, or refurbished, and sold to countries with diplomatic relations.
Davis-Mansons Air Force Base
When the aircraft maintenance order is issued, AMARG employees must quickly complete the aircraft maintenance and return it to the user. Usually, it is quite time-consuming to find the equipment needed for maintenance in such a large base. Employees often need to dispatch vehicles and drivers to find tools and equipment that need to complete tasks. Therefore, AMARG needs a system to improve the efficiency of this process and make maintenance more effective.
However, due to the vast area of the base, this creates obstacles to the application of most traditional RFID solutions. It is too expensive to develop an RFID reader infrastructure that can provide the location of the device in real time. It requires erecting poles and installing antennas in open spaces where aircraft often pass.
AeroScout UAV is a new system that provides another solution by combining GPS and Wi-Fi active RFID tags. UAV MobileView 4.0 software allows users to locate labeled items based on the strength of the tag signal received by multiple standard 802.11 Wi-Fi access points, which also act as RFID readers. When the AeroScout GPS Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz tag is too far away and its signal cannot be received by at least three Wi-Fi access points, the GPS receiver embedded in the tag can determine its latitude and longitude, and then send data via Wi-Fi signals .
When working in GPS or Wi-Fi mode, the tag can be located within 5-10 meters. However, GPS does not work in all environments. Some storage areas are closed and cannot receive satellite transmissions. Davis-Mansons Air Force Base has a total of 42 Wi-Fi access points, and the network can receive signals from tags anywhere in the base.
AMARG currently affixes the AeroScout label to 1,000 pieces of aircraft maintenance equipment. The tag size is 5*3*1.5 inches, including Wi-Fi RFID chip, antenna, GPS chip, motion sensor and battery. The label can be affixed or screwed on the flange of the equipment, according to Amir Ben-Assa, AeroScout’s industry program marketing director, the base eventually plans to integrate the system into existing inventory management.
Ben-Assa added that AMARG is now beginning to label most important maintenance equipment, and the base and AeroScout are now discussing extending the system to aircraft parts and other items.
When receiving the repair order, the employee determines what tools are needed to complete the task and enters the name of the equipment on the AeroScout UAV stand-alone system. MobileView software then displays the floor plan of the base, with icons on the map indicating the location of the items. The system can also search for all devices according to the selected category.
The tag sends the ID code and GPS data at a set interval. Since the tag is embedded with a motion sensor, when the device is stationary, the signal transmission frequency will be lower than that of the mobile.
According to Haithcox, AeroScout is now pushing the system to large-scale outdoor applications, such as airports and ports.
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