DoD Looks to Scale Predictive Maintenance

In its efforts to make greater use of commercial technologies, a Pentagon innovation office formed to streamline government contracting has expanded an predictive maintenance effort designed to keep front-line aircraft ready for duty. The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) created in 2015 to link the military with technology vendors recently awarded a five-year, $95 million contract to C3.ai to boost aircraft readiness. The company said it will provide an AI-based software application that uses machine learning algorithms to monitor aircraft systems. The goal is to spot critical subsystem failures before they occur and help predict the parts and maintenance required to keep aircraft flying. The AI platform also would serve as a logistics tool, identifying the type of part required to fix an airborne system and where that part can be acquired from DoD's far-flung logistics network.