AirframeAE

Inspiration

We flew in from Boston, and during the flight, we experienced really bad turbulence. It got us thinking about how the airplane manages to be the safest long-distance transportation, and when we looked into it (https://soar.wichita.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/ec494d60-0b5c-4f44-a6e9-e4e9d664df68/content), we realized how flawed the system actually was. The number of safety inspections they go under is unusually low for the amount of time they spend in the air; it leaves a lot of time for tiny cracks and damage to develop into bigger, more dangerous problems.

What it does

AirframeAE is currently a simulation program linked to a hardware component. There are nodes in the airplane that use acoustic emissions to collect data on the state of the plane hull. It isolates certain frequencies to detect if a crack or dent has occurred, and then it uses triangulation based on the proximity and noise level of the event relative to the nodes.

How we built it

We began with an HTML simulation of the plane and its nodes. We then developed multiple iterations of the simulation, and once we felt happy with the trials and the mock data and the predicted crack versus the real one, we developed graphs to help visualize the sound data.

Challenges we ran into

Flying in from Boston on a time crunch enabled us to forget a lot of key hardware components, which would end up being essential for our idea. When we visited the nearest MicroCenter, it ended up not having a lot of the stuff that we wanted, which limited our capabilities for hardware, so we were unable to create a truly functional piece of hardware.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The accuracy of the triangulation based on the sound waves in the simulation is very accurate (within 95% accuracy), and the 3D model and interactiveness of the simulation are very impressive for only a 12-hour hackathon. We also ended up learning a lot more about how microphones and Arduinos interact, even if it didn't end up working out how we intended

What we learned

We learnt a lot about how to code Arduinos using C++. Furthermore, we did an in-depth dive on airplane safety, and even ended up looking at a few research papers to get a better grasp of what we were working with.

What's next for AirframeAE

Ideally, we would need to start out with creating better hardware. Eventually, we would work out way up to integrating real nodes under a laminated exterior, and being able to successfully isolate the frequencies with all the background noise that the plane faces on a day to day basis. AirframeAE will end up saving countless lives.