IVHM FOR UAVs FOR FUTURE MRO – OPERATIONAL FRAMEWORK, REQUIREMENTS, AND GAP ANALYSIS

Kurzfassung

In the past years unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have transformed from being only available for military applications towards a technology, which is now available to everyone. Vehicles range from small toy multi-copters up to large-scale aircraft. Currently, there is a shift towards a more autonomous flight operation, even in highly populated areas. Without direct pilot control. Also new modes of transport, such as urban air mobility (UAM) are evolving. It is to be expected that these new technologies, new business models, and operational profiles will result in often less direct human involvement in operations. Therefore, strategies for maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) cannot be fully transferred from traditional manned aviation. Since the focus of UAV development is primarily on solving technical problems and introducing more autonomy, there are no commonly established MRO strategies yet. In this paper we give an overview of the operational framework for autonomous UAVs from an MRO perspective, considering both, the individual vehicle and fleets of UAVs. We describe operational scenarios for small-scale multi-copters as well as for UAM and take a look at key technical components. From this we derive MRO approaches and identify potential for the introduction of an integrated vehicle health management (IVHM) in conjunction with a condition monitoring to allow for an individual and predictive maintenance.