Following industry trend, Airbus dives into data

WASHINGTON — Airbus has created a new advanced data analytics system for the defense market, gathering data from vehicles to better plan maintenance and study mission performance. The firm announced the program, SmartForce, at the 2018 Farnborough Airshow.

The program is meant to “enable substantially more efficient maintenance by drilling into the wealth of data acquired by new generation helicopters and aircraft,” according to a company news release. The company added it will “more rapidly perform root-cause analysis and faster trouble shooting.”

The use of artificial intelligence to make sense of data has become a growing focus for the defense and intelligence community, as has cloud computing for handling the massive volumes of data.

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“Our digital analytics services support the goal of enhanced mission readiness of our operators’ aircraft," said Stephan Miegel, head of military aircraft services at Airbus Defence and Space, “and they provide predictive solutions which all contribute to reduced workload and costs.”

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