There are inefficiencies in the current United States (U.S.) Navy maintenance system. These inefficiencies waste resources and manpower. Platform-level diagnostics is relegated primarily to built-in-test (BIT). However, BIT is not entirely reliable. Enhanced Organizational level (O-level) diagnostic functionality is needed to reduce ambiguities between multiple Weapons Replaceable Assemblies (WRA's) and interconnects; thus markedly reducing rates of "cannot duplicate/no fault found" (A-799) conditions. This paper describes an effort at the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) Lakehurst to improve avionic diagnostics at both the Olevel and the Intermediate level (I-level) through the bi-directional exchange of information between these maintenance levels and the use of virtual instrumentation at the Olevel. The Integrated Diagnostics and Automated Test Systems (IDATS) team at NAVAIR Lakehurst has established an environment which closely models the O-leveland I-level in terms of dataflow. This environment was used to demonstrate several concepts which can be used to augment BIT, enabling smarter maintenance decisions at both levels of maintenance. These concepts were demonstrated using a data processor from an F-14 Avionics Weapons Group 9 (AWG-9) radar system.
For certain avionics systems, built-in test (BIT) alone cannot accurately fault isolate to a single avionics box, or Weapons Replaceable Assembly (WRA). This is evident in the number of WRAs that are incorrectly removed and replaced at the aircraft. Such false remove and replace maintenance actions are realized in terms of increased support cost and decreased aircraft operational availability, A O . A patent-pending prototype device has been developed to break diagnostic ambiguities at the aircraft by inserting test access points between WRAs. This prototype includes a customized cylindrical Military Specification (MIL-SPEC) connector, which routes avionics bus signals to a handheld tester while the aircraft is powered on. The handheld tester analyzes data bus traffic between two functioning WRAs and provides a red, yellow, or green Light Emitting Diode (LED) output to indicate the health of the connected WRAs. The device can be reprogrammed to detect a wide range of fault indicators as they are discovered through the analysis of fielded avionics systems. This novel device provides diagnostics information at the aircraft for improved fault isolation, which may result in a significant reduction in the unnecessary cost associated with false removal and replacement of healthy WRAs.
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