Silver Medal for research paper on predictive aircraft maintenance
PhD candidate Ingeborg de Pater has received the Silver Medal for her paper on predictive aircraft maintenance at the 61st Annual Symposium AGIFORS (Airline Group of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies). Every year, the symposium hosts The Anna Valicek Award, which recognizes original and innovative papers in the application of Operations Research to aviation-related problems. A total of 12 research papers have been submitted for this award in 2021. The jury, consisting of 18 experts in Operations Research and aviation, have awarded the work of Ingeborg with 1st prize (Silver Medal, a cheque of US $2.500, and the invitation to present her work at the symposium). Earlier this year Ingeborg’s work on aircraft maintenance has been awarded the Best Innovation at the AGIFORS Aircraft Maintenance Operations conference.
You can read the paper here:
Ingeborg de Pater, together with her supervisor dr. Mihaela Mitici, have proposed an end-to-end approach for predictive aircraft maintenance planning. Sensor data is used to predict the Remaining-Useful-Life (RUL) of aircraft components. These predictions are subsequently used to plan maintenance tasks for a fleet of aircraft. The research considers realistic flight schedules, and a limited stock of expensive spare components.
The results show that using sensor data, the distribution of the RUL can be well approximated. By updating the RUL prognostics over time, the maintenance planning of the aircraft is dynamically adjusted in a reliable and cost-efficient manner. The results also show that the proposal approach leads to 30-48% cost savings when compared with traditional maintenance practices.
