The US Air Force has selected MetroStar Systems’ AI-powered Iris maintenance platform for deployment at Travis Air Force Base to modernize aircraft sustainment and improve maintainer safety.
The platform combines generative AI, computer vision, wearable technology, and digital recordkeeping to support maintenance in confined and hazardous aircraft spaces.
It gives maintainers AI-assisted access to technical procedures, streams live video to remote experts, and automatically records maintenance sessions in a searchable digital logbook.
MetroStar said Iris originated as an Air Force Spark Tank project to improve maintenance on KC-135 aircraft before evolving into a broader AI-enabled solution.
Travis AFB, one of the service’s largest air mobility hubs, will use the platform to support maintenance of C-5M Super Galaxy, C-17 Globemaster III, and KC-46 Pegasus aircraft.
AI That Sees, Searches, and Documents
Hannah Hunt, MetroStar’s vice president of product, said Iris is more than a conventional AI chatbot, describing it as a mission-ready digital assistant.
“Behind the scenes, Iris combines zero-shot object detection and semantic search on FMV streams with a retrieval-augmented knowledge base grounded in unit-specific technical data,” she stated.
“Iris can surface a relevant technical order procedure, develop and submit work orders, and log the session simultaneously, without the maintainer changing how they work.”
According to MetroStar, the platform uses computer vision and semantic search to analyze live maintenance video, retrieve technical information, assist with work order creation, and automatically document maintenance activities without disrupting existing workflows.
The company estimates Iris could recover more than 35,000 maintenance work hours annually and add about 7,000 aircraft availability days across a fleet.
