AFRL Initiates Transfer of Engine Data Mining Software

  • Published
  • By Materials & Manufacturing Directorate
  • AFRL/ML
AFRL engineers collaborated with data management company Info Scribe Technology Laboratory (ISTL), Inc., to acquire a software package for assisting the management of inspection data. The Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center (OC-ALC), Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, purchased the intelligent agent architecture (IAA) software to gain the capability to develop database search tools and reports for eddy current inspection system (ECIS) data. 

With the software acquisition, OC-ALC now has the capacity to develop database search tools and reports related to the increasing amount of ECIS data collected daily. Prior to this purchase, the availability of tools and reports was limited to products developed under Small Business Innovation Research contracts, with the development of new tools being dependent on additional, followon contracts. The purchase of the IAA software license enables OC-ALC engineers to develop tools and reports for evaluating inspection times, testing restarts and failures, and verifying probe performance and eddy current machine utilization--all of which are tasks that aid overall inspection and maintenance of turbine engines on Air Force (AF) aircraft. 

ISTL, Inc., produced a data mining system that provides AF engineers, researchers, and maintenance personnel an efficient resource for searching through aircraft turbine engine inspection data and performing automated analysis on that data. IAA, a fully developed and demonstrated search capability, enables users to search ECIS data (stored at a rate of hundreds of gigabytes per year) and generate electronic reports within minutes. In addition, it allows the integration of all data sources so that users can conduct comprehensive searches for various trends, such as those pertaining to engine inspection processes or those related to a given engine's remaining life.