Wireless sensors could reduce aircraft maintenance costs

Aircraft fuselages may one day be fitted with wireless sensors that transmit crucial information on factors such as stress endured during flight to ground crew during maintenance checks. 

The technology is being trialled by EADS in an effort to reduce maintenance costs, which account for up to 22 per cent of an aircraft’s overall expenses per flight hour.

‘If you have a sensing system on the aircraft you can go to maintenance-on-demand’

Dominik Samson, EADS Innovation Works

A team of experts from EADS Innovation Works and external co-operation partners have developed data-collecting sensors to work wirelessly and power themselves by thermo-electricity. This method involves converting heat flow into electrical power with the aid of a thermoelectric generator.

PhD student Dominik Samson from EADS Innovation Works said: ‘Now you have scheduled maintenance, which means you have no sensors or maybe few sensors and then the ground crew has to check everything in the aircraft for possible errors.’