Browsing by Author "Arizar, R."

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Towards automated aircraft maintenance inspection. A use case of detecting aircraft dents using mask r-cnn
(American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc, AIAA, 2020) Bouarfa, S.; Doğru, Anıl; Arizar, R.; Aydoğan, Reyhan; Serafico, J.; Computer Science; AYDOĞAN, Reyhan; Doğru, Anıl
Deep learning can be used to automate aircraft maintenance visual inspection. This can help increase the accuracy of damage detection, reduce aircraft downtime, and help prevent inspection accidents. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of this method in supporting aircraft engineers to automatically detect aircraft dents. The novelty of the work lies in applying a recently developed neural network architecture know by Mask R-CNN, which enables the detection of objects in an image while simultaneously generating a segmentation mask for each instance. Despite the small dataset size used for training, the results are promising and demonstrate the potential of deep learning to automate aircraft maintenance inspection. The model can be trained to identify additional types of damage such as lightning strike entry and exit points, paint damage, cracks and holes, missing markings, and can therefore be a useful decision-support system for aircraft engineers.
Open Access
Using convolutional neural networks to automate aircraft maintenance visual inspection
(MDPI, 2020-12) Doğru, Anıl; Bouarfa, S.; Arizar, R.; Aydoğan, Reyhan; Computer Science; AYDOĞAN, Reyhan; Doğru, Anıl
Convolutional Neural Networks combined with autonomous drones are increasingly seen as enablers of partially automating the aircraft maintenance visual inspection process. Such an innovative concept can have a significant impact on aircraft operations. Though supporting aircraft maintenance engineers detect and classify a wide range of defects, the time spent on inspection can significantly be reduced. Examples of defects that can be automatically detected include aircraft dents, paint defects, cracks and holes, and lightning strike damage. Additionally, this concept could also increase the accuracy of damage detection and reduce the number of aircraft inspection incidents related to human factors like fatigue and time pressure. In our previous work, we have applied a recent Convolutional Neural Network architecture known by MASK R-CNN to detect aircraft dents. MASK-RCNN was chosen because it enables the detection of multiple objects in an image while simultaneously generating a segmentation mask for each instance. The previously obtained F-1 and F-2 scores were 62.67% and 59.35%, respectively. This paper extends the previous work by applying different techniques to improve and evaluate prediction performance experimentally. The approach uses include (1) Balancing the original dataset by adding images without dents; (2) Increasing data homogeneity by focusing on wing images only; (3) Exploring the potential of three augmentation techniques in improving model performance namely flipping, rotating, and blurring; and (4) using a pre-classifier in combination with MASK R-CNN. The results show that a hybrid approach combining MASK R-CNN and augmentation techniques leads to an improved performance with an F-1 score of (67.50%) and F-2 score of (66.37%).