United Technologies P&W Launches Revolutionary 3-D Directed Maintenance
Pratt & Whitney (Hall 4, F9) expects to revolutionize aircraft maintenance with an innovative wireless Internet-based system. For the first time, this provides direct two-way access to aircraft systems for diagnostics, data collection, and on-board hosting of technical information from anywhere in the world. The company is demonstrating this advanced technology at the Farnborough air show this week in a production aircraft, which incorporates the world's first engine fault-code-driven, 3-D-directed maintenance interface, utilizing advanced 3-D computer gaming technologies.
The maintenance system is based on P&W's unique onboard Internet Microserver system. This approach has the capability to host a multitude of software service applications, accessible wirelessly in a low-cost open systems format. Running in a wireless tablet's Web browser planeside, one example being demonstrated uses 3-D computer gaming technology developed by New Zealand-based Right Hemisphere. The display is driven by engine fault code data and based on actual engineering-derived CAD sources, providing an exciting, easy-to-understand 3-D visual user interface to guide a technician through a repair.
