GridRaster Inc. Awarded the US Air Force SBIR Phase II Contract to Improve CV-22 Osprey Aircraft Wiring and Maintenance using Augmented Reality

GridRaster Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based Extended Reality (XR) platforms that power high-performance and scalable Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR)/Mixed Reality (MR) experiences for enterprises, announced today that the U.S. Air Force (USAF) awarded Grid Raster a SBIR Phase II contract to improve Aircraft Wiring Maintenance. This project will support the USAF’s fleet of CV-22 Osprey aircraft by providing a high precision Augmented Reality (AR) Toolset.

The complexity of USAF aircraft wiring continues to increase with the fielding and deployment of advanced communications, integrated aircraft survivability systems, and aircraft data collection systems. Maintenance technicians must maintain extraordinarily complex wiring installations, routing, clamp, and abatement placements and are required to know all variants of the systems. With V-22 variants expected to be in service beyond 2040, capability enhancements and readiness initiatives are program priorities, not only for the USAF, but also for the Marine Corps and Navy.

As part of the Phase II effort, GridRaster Inc. will develop a high-precision AR Toolset prototype built on an open system scalable XR infrastructure and will test and evaluate the system’s ability to facilitate repair and maintenance of CV-22 engine nacelle wiring. The USAF’s CV-22 nacelle wiring has been a major readiness degrader accounting for approximately 60% of the overall maintenance effort. GridRaster’s proposed solution will enable CV-22 maintainers to troubleshoot, repair, and train far more efficiently in the operational environment.

“We are excited to work with the US Air Force and specifically with the CV-22 Program Office at NAS PAX River” said Rishi Ranjan, CEO and Founder of GridRaster. “We look forward to delivering an affordable AR Toolset built on an open system infrastructure, utilizing pattern recognition, and providing precise, intuitive visual overlays of complex wiring installations, routings, clamp and abatement placements in relation to surrounding components and structures. With the proposed solution, our objective is to solve the CV-22 wiring maintenance mission need by reducing maintenance man-hours, eliminating errors, and improving installation accuracy of aircraft wiring harnesses in congested spaces of the aircraft by delivering a solution that can seamlessly scale to support other avionics systems and variants of the aircraft.”

For this effort, GridRaster will team with Avatar Partners, Inc. who specializes in development of military-grade, immersive XR training and job-aiding solutions, to provide an end-to-end solution. GridRaster will provide the underlying core software infrastructure with high-fidelity, low-latency remote rendering, high-precision 3D Artificial Intelligence (AI) and agile deployment and operations using DevSecOps; while Avatar Partners will design and develop AR application for CV-22 Wiring Maintenance.

Source: GridRaster media announcement