MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA (April 21, 2023) — Aerospace Ground Equipment (AGE) on U.S. military flight lines consists of hundreds of different assets varying in size, shape, and function. AGE equipment includes hydraulic test stands, diesel generators, gas turbine generators, air conditioning units, heaters, jacks, maintenance stands, nitrogen carts, lights, and more to support a variety of airframes and maintenance operations. Currently, to track AGE assets, technicians must manually record their locations on paper. This process, which occurs an estimated 12-15 times per day, is inefficient and time-consuming, especially since assets are often moved without notice.
Partnering with Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific, the shortcomings of the current process of manually recording the locations of AGE assets via paper are mitigated by leveraging asset tracker devices. Defense Innovation Unit’s AGE project is prototyping devices to provide location data in real-time, with a user-friendly graphical interface updates of AGE locations which in turn drastically reduces the man-hours required to locate and utilize critical assets.
“Commercial companies are actively utilizing advanced technologies such as Bluetooth, RFID, GPS, and 5G for asset tracking, which the Department of Defense should leverage by adopting and integrating these existing, proven solutions to enhance their own asset tracking capabilities,” said Jon Rogers, Cyber Project Manager at DIU.
Of the original 38 responses to the solicitation, three initial companies were selected for contract awards: LX Group, Kudelski, VOS Systems. LX Group is an Australian-based engineering design and development firm that provides specialized services in electronics, software, and mechanical engineering for various industries. Kudelski IoT is a provider of end-to-end IoT security solutions, enabling customers to protect their connected devices and data with advanced encryption and other security technologies. VOS Systems offers services in engineering, manufacturing and device management including building and managing scalable 5G-enabled solutions.
*UPDATE* (August 28): DIU is pleased to announce that TurbineOne, a software company that delivers automated threat recognition, is the latest vendor selected to support this effort.