Automating Rotorcraft Parts Life Tracking using RF rechargeable semi-passive RFID

The reliability of manually tracking life critical components on rotorcraft over their operational lifetimes has been troublesome. The accepted system is subject to human errors involved in keeping up with the configuration of installed fatigue critical components. The identity of installed components whether found on component name plates or hand scribed into the parts themselves are not always transferred correctly by responsible personnel into the maintenance tracking system. Even where 2D barcodes are now used, the location and accessibility of the parts, their low readability due to continuous exposure to in-service dirt and grime, and the inability of fixed markings to carry maintenance, condition, and usage date on each component make even this more recent approach lacking. Most importantly, no mechanism exists to automatically transfer this critical airworthiness data to the health and usage monitoring systems currently installed on a growing number of modern rotorcraft models. The use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based component tracking has the potential to eliminate many of these problems and insure that all component maintenance data is available, even if the aircraft must operate for extended periods without access to a network as is often the case when helicopters operate in remote areas. Passive UHF RFID Tags of an acceptable size for this application have read range limitations which do not allow the best design approaches to be taken. This paper investigates an alternative design using a novel semi-passive RFID design approach.