DAME: The route to commercialisation

Tom Jackson

University of York

Distributed Aircraft Maintenance Environment - DAMENeSC 22nd April 2005

Project Partners

• EPSRC Funded, £3.2 Million, 3 years, commenced Jan 2002.

• 4 Universities:– University of York, Dept of Computer Science– University of Sheffield, Dept of Automatic Control and Systems

Engineering – University of Oxford, Dept of Engineering Science– University of Leeds, School of Computing and School of

Mechanical Engineering

• Industrial Partners:– Rolls-Royce– Data Systems and Solutions– Cybula Ltd

Distributed Aircraft Maintenance Environment - DAMENeSC 22nd April 2005

DAME Objectives

• Proof of concept for Grid technology in the aerospace diagnostic domain.

• Three primary Grid challenges:– Data Management;– Rapid data mining and analysis of fault data;– Information management and data fusion for

diagnosis/prognosis applications;

• Other key (commercial) issues:– Security– Virtual Organisations– Quality of Service issues (and Service Level Agreements)

Distributed Aircraft Maintenance Environment - DAMENeSC 22nd April 2005

Operational Scenario

Engine flight data

Airline office

MaintenanceCentre

London AirportNew York Airport

GRID DiagnosticsCentre

Engine flight data

European data centre

Engine flight data

Airline office

MaintenanceCentre

London AirportNew York Airport

US data centre

GRID DiagnosticsCentre

Engine flight data

Distributed Aircraft Maintenance Environment - DAMENeSC 22nd April 2005

Exploitation Route

• DAME Technology pull-through in DTI funded BROADEN project– Industrial strength grid– Deployed across diverse RR operating divisions– Includes cluster computing– Grid Infrastructure managed by EDS

• DAME methods will be deployed on operational test-bed data

• Project launched 1st April 2005.

Distributed Aircraft Maintenance Environment - DAMENeSC 22nd April 2005

Success Factors

• Strong industrial engagement achieved– Early Use Case development– Demonstrator closely aligned to RR and DS&S business

process– Industrial trials of subsets of technology

• Consideration of commercial drivers– Scalable methods– Security and dependability analysis– Quality of Service

• Effective demonstrator– Combined Technology and Business issues– Deployed on operational Grid (WRG)

Distributed Aircraft Maintenance Environment - DAMENeSC 22nd April 2005

Challenges

• Balance of research vs development effort– Effort to build demonstrator– Rapid migration of research output into demonstrator– Responding to ‘customer’ requirements

• Changing standards (GT2-GT4)• Gaps in middleware

– eg configurable workflow tools

• Data Access and commercial sensitivities• Distributed development effort

Distributed Aircraft Maintenance Environment - DAMENeSC 22nd April 2005

Summary

• DAME achieved strong & effective industrial engagement

• Confidence in PoC led to follow on industrial exploitation

• Demonstrator was effective for both technology developers and business managers

• Pilot projects require different balance of research skills

• Achieving industry engagement takes time & effort