FW-HTF-RL/Collaborative Research: The Future of Aviation Inspection: Artificial Intelligence and Mixed Reality as Agents of Transformation

在全球范围内，经济依赖于安全的航空旅行；然而，由于人为错误占飞机事故的70%，需要重点帮助那些负责确保现代和未来飞机的安全和可靠性的人。航空维修技术人员经常难以跟上航空业的需求，因为他们受到危险的工作环境、高认知负荷、复杂的任务和日益严重的工人短缺的影响，而且随着未来对他们的需求预计会增加，这种斗争只会越来越大。这一人类技术前沿的未来工作-研究：大型(FW-HTF-RL)奖支持一个由大学、专业组织和行业合作伙伴领导的合作研究项目，该项目由以下大学、专业组织和行业合作伙伴领导：克莱姆森大学、普渡大学、格林维尔技术学院、SA Technologies、国家自主技术中心、航空技师教育委员会、Choose AerSpace、Frontier Airlines、AAR、Republic Airways、Atlas Air、Stevens AerSpace、Vericor、AMFA和洛克希德马丁公司。该研究项目的目标是融合人工智能(AI)和扩展现实(XR)技术方面的专业知识和技术进步，以增强航空维修技术人员在检查任务中的认知能力。其核心思想是，这一增强可以提高他们的检查能力，减少工作量，并最终减少因维修失误而导致的航空事故数量。从长远来看，这些努力将不断改善未来航空维修技术人员和飞机机队的整体健康状况。此外，虽然这项工作将立即探索航空维修部门列为优先事项，但利用信息丰富的任务、目视检查和例行维修的类似领域将受益于所展示的技术整合。该项目汇集了多个学科，包括人因工程、计算机科学、人机交互、行为和社会科学、经济学和航空维修。研究人员团队的结构是为了实现多个趋同目标。首先，这项工作利用人的因素、行为科学和人机交互学科来了解融合的AI和XR技术将对航空维修技术人员的认知过程产生的影响，以及与这些技术整合到这支队伍中相关的潜在风险。其次，该研究项目利用计算机科学和人机交互来设计和开发新的人工智能模型，这些模型可以执行飞机检查，并根据通过XR技术收集的信息提出维护建议。研究小组将帮助设计沟通和互动范例，以便未来的航空维修技术人员能够理解和接受这些建议。第三，该项目可以在航空维修领域提供AI和XR技术的突破性集成，帮助航空维修技术人员实时。最后，这一努力不断将其他三个目标的结果与社会和劳动力数据相结合，以量化人工智能和XR技术将对航空维修领域和邻近工作场所部门产生的经济可行性和影响。该项目由人类-技术前沿交叉部门工作未来计划资助，旨在通过推进与人类工人和谐运作的智能工作技术的设计，促进对工作环境中相互依赖的人类-技术伙伴关系的更深层次的基本了解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Globally, economies rely on safe air travel; however, with human error accounting for 70% of aircraft accidents, an emphasis needs to be placed on helping those responsible for ensuring the safety and reliability of modern and future aircrafts. Aviation maintenance technicians routinely struggle to keep pace with the needs of the aviation industry as they are impacted by a hazardous work environment, high cognitive load, a complex task, and growing worker shortages, and this struggle is only poised to grow as the need for them is slated to increase in the future. This Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier - Research: Large (FW-HTF-RL) award supports a collaborative research project to address this challenge, led by a group of universities, professional organizations and industry partners: Clemson University, Purdue University, Greenville Technical College, SA Technologies, National Center for Autonomous Technologies, Aviation Technician Education Council, ChooseAerospace, Frontier Airlines, AAR, Republic Airways, Atlas Air, Stevens Aerospace, Vericor, AMFA, and Lockheed Martin. The goal of this research project is to merge expertise and technological advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Extended Reality (XR) technologies to enhance the cognitive capabilities of aviation maintenance technicians during inspection tasks. The central idea is that this augmentation could increase their inspection capabilities, reduce workload, and ultimately reduce the number of aviation accidents caused by maintenance errors. In the long term, these efforts will continuously improve the overall health of both future aviation maintenance technicians and aircraft fleets. Furthermore, while this work has prioritized the immediate exploration of the aviation maintenance sector, similar domains that leverage information-rich tasks, visual inspection, and routine maintenance stand to benefit from the demonstrated technological integrations. This project brings together several disciplines, including Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Behavioral and Social Science, Economics, and Aviation Maintenance. The investigator team is structured to achieve multiple convergent goals. First, this work leverages human factors, behavioral science, and human-computer interaction disciplines to understand the impacts that merged AI and XR technologies will have on the cognitive process of aviation maintenance technicians and the potential risks associated with the integration of these technologies into this workforce. Second, this research project leverages computer science and human-computer interaction to design and develop novel AI models that perform aircraft inspections and make maintenance recommendations based on information gathered through XR technologies. The research team will help design communication and interaction paradigms so future aviation maintenance technicians can understand and accept these recommendations. Third, the project could provide the breakthrough integration of AI and XR technology within the aviation maintenance field to help aviation maintenance technicians in real time. Finally, this effort continuously synthesizes the results of the other three goals with society and workforce-derived data to quantify the economic feasibility and impact that AI and XR technologies will have on the aviation maintenance domain and adjacent workplace sectors. This project has been funded by the Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier cross-directorate program to promote a deeper fundamental understanding of the interdependent human-technology partnership in work contexts by advancing the design of intelligent work technologies that operate in harmony with human workers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.