Flex Track for use in Production

Thompson, Paul; Hartmann, John; Feikert, Ed; Buttrick, Jim

doi:10.4271/2005-01-3318

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Airbus UK designed a leading flexible drilling/riveting system for horizontal end-wing assembly line of A320 [2]. It adopts double-spindle system and build-ins chipping dislodged equipment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A design of aircraft drilling end-effector based on flexible railway

Yuan

Gong

et al. 2012

IEEE 10th International Conference on Industrial Informatics

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This paper describe a design of aircraft drilling end-effector (ADEE) based on flexible railway which is mainly used for drilling on the surface of fuselage and wing of aircraft. The whole system is composed of several different modules. Flexible railway module (FRM) make ADEE move to any places where need to be drilled. Framework and Z axis module (FZM) uses high-rigidity framework and linear slide guide to guarantee the precision and stability of the drilling action. Compression and absorbing chipping module (CACM) adopts symmetric doublecylinder structure and generates 1000N compressing forces that can compress three layers aircraft skin and is increased by demand. Vacuous absorbing chipping mechanism uses high flow vacuum generator as vacuum air source and filters metal shavings by filter. Visual inspection module (VIM) can precisely calculate the distance between three points around drill bit and finished surface by calculating, and then achieves verticality deviation value through normal detection algorithm. Binary angular adjustment module (BAAM) revises angle deviation that is caused by the differences of adsorption position diameter of two rows of rack. ADEE is more flexible and better adaptable; meanwhile, it can greatly improve the efficiency and precision of the holes. It does not use drilling fluids in the whole manufacturing process and fundamentally eliminates the pollution problem of the drilling fluid. In conclusion, experiments show that ADEE can meet the requirements of automatic drilling of departments of aircraft and greatly enhance the quality and speed of drilling holes.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A design of aircraft drilling end-effector based on flexible railway

Yuan

Gong

et al. 2012

IEEE 10th International Conference on Industrial Informatics

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“…Millions of fasteners are used to integrate the structures of a large aircraft; hence, the same number of fastener holes has to be drilled with high quality in aircraft assembly process. Various of automated drilling systems have been developed for aircraft assembly (Bi et al, 2013), including automated drilling and riveting machines (Hartmann et al, 2000;Zieve and Smith, 1998;Zieve et al, 2004;Hogan et al, 2003), dedicated drilling equipments (Calawa et al, 2004;Hogan et al, 2003), robotic drilling systems (Devlieg, 2010(Devlieg, , 2011DeVlieg et al, 2002;Atkinson et al, 2007), portable drilling equipments (Boyl-Davis et al, 2005;Thompson et al, 2005;Oberoi et al, 2009;Buttrick, 2003;Reid, 2007), etc. Because of the complex structure of an aircraft, these equipments are only used in specific occasions in aircraft assembly according to their own characteristics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic stepping for circumferential splice drilling in aircraft fuselage assembly

Zhu

Zhang

Mei

et al. 2016

Industrial Robot: An International Journal

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Purpose – A large number of fastener holes have to be drilled with high quality in the circumferential splice region during the assembly of aircraft fuselage. The purpose of this paper is to design an automatic stepping mechanism for a circumferential splice drilling machine, to meet the requirements of large workspace and high accuracy in drilling at the same time. Design/methodology/approach – A docking position detection method based on magnetic proximity sensors is proposed for the positioning of the arc-shaped rail with respect to the circumferential rails, which significantly improves the accuracy and reliability of automatic stepping. The slipping phenomenon of the end-effector is analyzed, and the optimized counter weights are used to eliminate the slipping and improve the working stability of the stepping mechanism. Findings – An automatic stepping mechanism is developed for the circumferential splice drilling machine, which comprises the docking position detection method and the elimination/suppression method of the end-effector’s slipping. Practical implications – The proposed automatic stepping mechanism has been integrated into the circumferential splice drilling machine for the fuselage assembly in an aircraft company in China. Originality/value – An automatic stepping scheme for the circumferential splice drilling machine is proposed, which enhances the efficiency in circumferential splice drilling in aircraft fuselage assembly.

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“…Thus automated precision drilling system becomes an essential integral part of aircraft numerical assembly technology. However, traditional approaches for automated drilling of the fuselage sections which employ large truss equipment require high investment and large space during implementation [3]. While this kind of technology remains effective for most applications, the aerospace industry is in demand of developing a low-cost, highly flexible, and lightweight special hole drilling equipment for fuselage sections.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Error Modeling and Compensation of Circular Motion on a New Circumferential Drilling System

Fang

Li²,

Fei³

et al. 2015

Mathematical Problems in Engineering

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A new flexible circumferential drilling system is proposed to drill on the fuselage docking area. To analyze the influence of the circular motion error to the drilling accuracy, the nominal forward kinematic model is derived using Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) method and this model is further developed to model the kinematic errors caused by circular positioning error and synchronization error using homogeneous transformation matrices (HTM). A laser tracker is utilized to measure the circular motion error of the two measurement points at both sides. A circular motion compensation experiment is implemented according to the calculated positioning error and synchronization error. Experimental results show that the positioning error and synchronization error were reduced by 65.0% and 58.8%, respectively, due to the adopted compensation, and therefore the circular motion accuracy is substantially improved. Finally, position errors of the two measurement points are analyzed to have little influence on the measurement result and the validity of the proposed compensation method is proved.

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Flex Track for use in Production

Cited by 12 publications

References 1 publication

A design of aircraft drilling end-effector based on flexible railway

A design of aircraft drilling end-effector based on flexible railway

Automatic stepping for circumferential splice drilling in aircraft fuselage assembly

Error Modeling and Compensation of Circular Motion on a New Circumferential Drilling System

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