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The economic determination to introduce automated/mechanized operations into the airframe assembly process is complex. Any one or all of the primary elements associated with airframe assembly requires that the current process of placing, drilling, countersinking, sealing and fastening parts by hand be compared with the economic value of changing to automation. A systematic cost analysis will be used to identify the equilibrium point where value is added by inserting automation technology into the airframe assembly manufacturing process. Components will be defined and utilized to provide the resource boundary, production possibility frontier, demand curve, elasticity of demand and the cross elasticity of demand for substitutes between hand drilling and automation.

“One shot” drilling and countersinking multiple stack ups of dissimilar materials with automated equipment requires a system of elements and controls. Each of the elements necessary to drill and countersink multiple stack ups of dissimilar materials in a single operation has been successfully combined and applied to an automated system. An explanation will be provided for the use of Microsoft Excel, standard drill libraries and math formulas to rapidly determine and insert the proper end effector position and drill/countersink commands into the machine control programming code. Surface location identification for coordination of the machine time and measurement based coding and the machine components necessary to interact with the time and measurement based machine code will also be explained.

A compact x-ray backscatter gauge has been developed to detect hidden edges of substructure and precisely determine edge distances prior to drilling. The portable system can be mounted at the drill for automated operation or used as a hand-held unit for manual operation. The gauge requires access to only one side of the assembly and can operate either in contact with the surface or held off the surface by as much as 10 mm. The system is capable of locating edges hidden under either a metallic or composite skin and maintaining edge distance tolerances within approximately a quarter of a mm.