A systems approach to diagnostic ambiguity reduction in naval avionic systems

There are inefficiencies in the current United States (U.S.) Navy maintenance system. These inefficiencies waste resources and manpower. Platform-level diagnostics is relegated primarily to built-in-test (BIT). However, BIT is not entirely reliable. Enhanced Organizational level (0-level) diagnostic functionality is needed to reduce ambiguities between multiple weapons Replaceable Assemblies (wRA\´s) and interconnects; thus markedly reducing rates of "cannot duplicate/no fault found" (A-799) conditions. This paper describes an effort at the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) Lakehurst to improve avionic diagnostics at both the 0- level and the Intermediate level (I-level) through the bi-directional exchange of information between these maintenance levels and the use of virtual instrumentation at the 0- level. The Integrated Diagnostics and Automated Test Systems (IDATS) team at NAVAIR Lakehurst has established an environment which closely models the 0-level and I-level in terms of dataflow. This environment was used to demonstrate several concepts which can be used to augment BIT, enabling smarter maintenance decisions at both levels of maintenance. These concepts were demonstrated using a data processor from an F-14 Avionics weapons Group 9 (AWG-9) radar system.