AIAM tool aims to simplify US Army maintenance

US soldiers perform maintenance on a Humvee using the Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Maintenance (AIAM) tool. (US Army/Sean Kief)

The US Army Communications-Electronics Command Integrated Logistics Support Center (CECOM ILSC) at Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Maryland, is developing an artificial intelligence (AI) tool for maintenance personnel.

The Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Maintenance (AIAM) tool is intended to centralise maintenance and service data, make it easier to navigate, and tie that information into the forms that soldiers have historically filled out by hand, Sean Murphy, AIAM lead developer at CECOM ILSC, told Janes on 13 October during the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual conference in Washington, DC.

Integrating data

CECOM ILSC is focused on bringing all US Army equipment technical manuals (TMs) into AIAM, Murphy said.

The centre anticipates integrating remaining manuals not in the system through the end of 2026. “Then, we're going to start looking at the other common data formats that we're also going to pull in,” Murphy said.

A challenge for CECOM ISLC is that some of the structured data is not optimised for working with AI, he said. “We're putting it into the best format for AI, which is called JSON,” Murphy said, adding that the information is centralised so that “any application built off our database” has all the data, making it easier for soldiers to find information.

The team is also working to shift the interaction from looking for a technical manual to starting with the equipment and specific problem to obtain the needed information, he said.

“We're modernising all of those interactions … We're filing all the forms, creating all the forms, as you're performing your tasks,” Murphy said.

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