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A closing of the gap between the unit costs of composite parts and those of the competing metal parts as demanded by the market for years can best be achieved through use of automated systems. A unique automation solution for the production of composite parts is the Continuous Composite Preforming System (CCPS) by BROETJE-Automation (BA). This system permits the automated, continuous production of 3D shaped and curved composite profiles such as those requiredfor the frames and stringers of modern aircraft. At present such components can only be produced in a very time-intensive sequential manual or semi-automated process. The newly developed system provides a fully automated preforming process for curved profiles to ensure a cost efficient solution for composite frame production.

Manual drilling in carbon fiber and mixed material structures is a labor and cost intensive process. Therefore, the aircraft manufacturers are constantly investigating flexible and cost-effective automation solutions to improve their production solutions. These objectives inspire us, as a supplier of aircraft assembly equipment, to develop robot and end-effector technologies to fulfill the customer's requirement for a highly accurate, robotic based drilling system for varying aerospace applications. This paper presents an innovative robot cell for drilling different aircraft parts consisting of CFRP and aluminum. The required absolute positioning accuracy is reached by using a proprietary compensation package for the robot that was developed by BROETJE-Automation. The new robot cell is based on a scalable system configuration which provides for the future extension of the work envelope and the integration of automated blind fastening.

For the past ten years, international Aerospace production is asking for flexible and production optimized machinery including IT-Integration packages for streamlining machine tool efforts into aircraft production. As one answer of these questions, a new innovative robot cell has been developed for drilling and fastener insertion in the inner structure of aircraft parts consisting of composite, titanium and aluminum. The new robot cell is based on a scalable 840D system configuration. The required absolute path planning and positioning accuracy force us to integrate our developed compensation methods in the 840D control system. This solution demonstrates how standard robots equipped with a matured control, compensation and off-line programming strategy by an innovative Aerospace solution supplier resulted in a highly flexible and cost-efficient light weight automation response.

Recent changes in the aircraft production process forces us, as a supplier of aircraft assembly equipment, to design innovative and modular manufacturing equipment that complies with modern specifications. This is especially true of composite manufacturing processes in combination with new materials that are now under development. In some applications, the potential for optimizing existing manufacturing processes (e.g. Prepreg-technology) as related to quality improvements and cost reduction has reached their limit. Using optimized production processes like preforming and resin infusion could allow one to achieve considerable benefits. This paper describes the latest development of a robot cell for dry fiber placement. Our customer's application required a completely new type of end-effector and an extension of the proven high accuracy robot positioning system.