The Impacts of Using Augmented Reality to Support Aircraft Maintenance

The United States Air Force USAF expends significant resources to address the rise in aviation mishaps derived from an overworked, understaffed maintenance community, and high operational environment. Currently, paper based technical orders T.O. are utilized by maintainers to accomplish aircraft inspections, servicing, and maintenance tasks. As technology advances, many civilian agencies have begun to leverage augmented reality AR to improve organizational proficiency. This research seeks to identify if the inclusion of AR within aircraft maintenance will positively or negatively affect maintenance task accuracy and completion time. A single variable randomized complete block design RCBD, within-subject design of experiment DOE asses the differences between a treatment group AR-enabled T.O. contrary to the control group paper-based T.O.. Results conclude AR-enabled T.O.s designed from the AF perspective will reduce simple task errors, but will not impact total task completion time. Differentiation from prior findings, application specificity, will impact AR effectiveness and utilization within the organization employed. Additionally, experimental research revealed the need to address current AF infrastructure barriers before implementation of the technology within the organization.