Since the early days of aircraft assembly, welded steel structures called Conventional Tooling has been used for positioning and holding parts in place during assembly. This paper presents a new tooling concept called Affordable Reconfigurable Tooling, where a robot is not only used for drilling and riveting but also for reconfiguring the tool itself. The concept consists of modular units that can either be reconfigured between products of the same family of assembly or rebuilt between product families. The research is part of an ongoing EU-founded aircraft industry project - ADFAST*.
