SBIR-STTR Award

A damage digitization system using optical cameras is proposed as part of a comprehensive nondestructive inspection platform. The advantages of such a system are the ease of use and the lack of a need for expensive specialized hardware. A combination of image processing, target recognition, and computer graphics algorithms will be used to accurately identify the location and size of each damage incident, and propagate them into a variety of display and analysis tools via a non proprietary file format.

Benefit:
The tools developed for this proposal should allow the Navy to more quickly and accurately access the damage to the composite surfaces of its aircraft, thereby extending the operation life of their vehicles in service. Additionally, these tools will augment SDL's capability to offer prognostics solutions into a wide range of applications for which NDI is seen as a way of increasing the safety and useful life of their structural components.

Keywords:
imaging, imaging, Composites, digitization, Structural Damage, Nondestructive inspection, Nondestructive Evaluation

The objective of this work is to address this need of knowing accurate damage location and size by developing a simple system that will allow for damage location to be accurately identified and then automatically transferred to a CAD model of a plane. This replaces a current process that consists of manually capturing damage location on a piece of clear Mylar, taking the Mylar to a workstation and then manually transferring the location to a CAD model. This is a time-consuming error prone process. Automating this process will allow us to achieve our goals of reducing the cost and time and improving the quality of repairs to composite structures and their coatings. In our Phase I we demonstrate the feasibility of this idea. The objective of the Phase II is to turn this technology into a practical solution that will seamlessly fit into existing maintenance processes.

Benefit:
The purpose of this project is to reduce the costs and time and improve the quality of repairs to composite structures and their coatings. This is becoming more important for both military and commercial aviation as the use of composites and coatings increase.

Keywords:
Composite, maintenance, Inspection