Lufthansa Technik AG - Holistic Asset Management solution for AR/VR experiences

Description of the company

Lufthansa Technik is a global leader in maintenance, repair and overhaul services as well as modifications in the civil aviation industry. With tailor-made maintenance programs and the most advanced repair procedures, we ensure the reliability and availability of our customers' aircraft.
We are independent of aircraft manufacturers and are internationally licensed as a repair, manufacturing and development company. With more than 26,000 employees and over 30 international subsidiaries, the Lufthansa Technik Group offers a complete service to around 800 customers around the world in its Maintenance, Overhaul, Equipment, Engines, Chassis, VIP Services, Innovation and Digital Fleet Solutions business units around aircraft technology.

The project is provided and supervised by the IT department "Application Services PLM, CAx and xR Solutions”. The department is responsible for the development and support of integrated IT solutions for engineering collaboration throughout the LHT group including infrastructure for AR/VR based training.

Initial Situation

Lufthansa Technik has started several initiatives to introduce or test AR and VR based applications. Currently the activities have a focus on VR based training scenarios and support of shopfloor processes.
The project should help to foster synergies in regard of managing and re-using 3D assets for use cases in training, marketing, BIM and shopfloor support.

Problem

For the asset management of VR and AR capable 3D models, special requirements exist. Those are not fulfilled by any data management system currently in use at LHT. Discussions in VR industry roundtables showed that the lack of such kind of asset management system is a common problem today.
Traditional PLM systems are specialized to manage CAD data but cannot create or manage VR ready models derived from this data out of the box.

Project goals

A feature rich asset management solution for AR/VR ready models shall be designed and at least partially implemented. Target audiences are AR/VR developers and training editors working with Unity.
The project team implements the development as an independent agile team with the support of the supervising department. The LHT employed product owner will act as a focal point.

Planned features are:

Support of multiple input channels, e.g. PLM system, manual upload
Support of multiple LODs and AR/VR target formats (GLB, JT, FBX, Unity prefab) based on given converter software (CADExchanger) or to be developed solution (inside Unity)
Rich data model for search and analytics
3D preview of assets
Index based and 3D similarity based search
Unity Plugin to browse and load assets directly from inside Unity
Enterprise ready access and authorization management principles applied

Implementation has to be done according to LHT standards

Deployable in Openshift cloud platform or at least containerized
Microservices approach
Angular based frontend
Backend implementation in Java or Kotlin based on Spring Boot and Spring ecosystem
ElasticSearch based indexing
Persistence either based on MariaDB or MongoDB
Loose coupling and event based architecture based on Kafka
Access Management based on LH environment and restrictions
Integrated monitoring and health check capabilities as required for cloud operations

Tasks

Requirement analysis and prioritization of features based on identified business values
UX design and user journey workshops and UX conception
Analysis of technical dependencies and implications (e.g. data sources and formats etc.)
Devlopment of a holistic system architecture
Implementation of the asset management platform (MVP or better)

Target group (students)

For this project we are looking for students specializing in computer science or engineering, who are passionate about application of AR and VR in an industrial context. In addition to a structured way of working, the willingness to work in an agile team and a DevOps approach is necessary

Dates

Please reserve these dates: Fishing for Experience Termine

Registration

You can apply here for Fishing for Experience.