Air Force seeking professionals for 3d reverse engineering services

The RSO published a call for a “cutting-edge, automated 3D scanning system”. It can create models to reproduce machine parts. That scanner should be able to gather the data for a blueprint showing complex, even hidden, geometry as well as color and reflectivity.

The RSO experimented with condition-based maintenance, additive manufacturing, cold spray technology, robotics, automation, and virtual reality.

Lastly, the Air Force wants it to be available at various innovation centers across the Air Force potentially including AFWERX sites and certain maintenance depots, where the company that offers the scanner would also train Airmen to use it. It would come with an online training course and a written user manual.

How does the 3d scanning reverse engineering services serve the Air Force?

Will Roper, Air Force acquisition head, told Air Force Magazine in a recent interview that there needs to be an effort to have a “digital representation of every part in the Air Force inventory.” 

In-depth 3D scans will identify where there’s variation across parts especially if they’re different across different airplanes in the same fleet.

Roper believes that there is a need to digitize parts so that one can understand when you pull it apart what its replacement needs to look like down to the 10,000th of an inch lets us bring in additive manufacturing and industry partners who are not normally parting developers but who could make those parts if we could give them a three-dimensional representation of it, and not the two-dimensional drawings we use today across the Air Force.

The search is the Air Force’s latest move to adopt 21st-century engineering and manufacturing techniques that can help it upgrade planes and other systems faster and at a lower cost. As aircraft age and companies are acquired or go out of business, it becomes harder and more expensive to fix broken components.

The Advanced Manufacturing Olympics is a success with 3d scanning spare parts

The RSO’s first Advanced Manufacturing Olympics featured a reverse-engineering competition. 

Teams had to accurately recreate a box of 10 industrial parts without a plan in hand. Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research took home the gold medal in that event.

The groups that succeeded in the Advanced Manufacturing Olympics event did so because they were able to start with in-depth 3D scans of the parts needed, and then iterate to create a strong enough part to be used on an Air Force plane.

In addition to reverse engineering, the RSO has sought rapid repair and sustainment technologies through the same solicitation that is open to commercial companies, typical defense contractors, and research institutions.

Aiming for new innovations for PAF, 3D2GO!

The RSO seeks to work with companies that can deliver innovative sustainment and operational advances that truly make a difference to Air Force end users.

Here in the Philippines, 3D2GO can offer the needed innovative sustainment and operational advances for our own Philippine Air Force (PAF).

Learn more about our reverse engineering process by emailing us at management@my3d.com.ph. You can also reach us through our Facebook and Instagram pages today!