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This paper presents novel development of a reconfigurable assembly cell which assembles multiple aerostructure products. Most aerostructure assembly systems are designed to produce one variant only. ...A state-of-the-art review finds significant benefits in deploying RAS for a group of aerostructures variants. What’s more, improvements to robot accuracy and decreasing costs of capital equipment means reconfigurable systems are becoming more economically viable.

Development of the autoclave forming aluminum (AFA) process has advanced current technology of age forming. Using an autoclave for application of aging heat and forming pressure, the process has been used to form 50 feet long, 2124 and 2419 aluminum wing skins containing integrally machined stiffeners and varying in thickness from 0.1 to 2.5 inches with thick pads in the middle of thin sections. The process produces smooth contours with no visible evidence of abrupt changes in thickness. The skins are believed to be the largest and most complex parts ever to be age creep formed in the history of the aircraft industry.

Automated solutions for manufacturing composite products based on prepreg often imply Automatic Fiber Placement or Automatic Tape Laying. These systems are generally associated with huge investments. For certain manufacturing applications it is interesting to investigate alternatives to find simpler and less costly automation. One example of an automated system could be the use of a standard industrial robot to pick single prepreg plies from an automated cutting machine and stack them to form a plane laminate. This paper is based on a case illustrating a product from the aircraft manufacturing industry. The case will demonstrate a pick and place concept on a general level and illustrate challenges that must be solved. The challenge selected to be the main focus for this paper is an automated process for backing paper removal. A literature review of different gripping technologies reveals several interesting technologies, and the most promising are tested for backing paper removal.

The dawn of the jet age: the first 10 years One of the ironies of aviation history is that the most obvious potential power source for a fixed-wing aircraft was barely considered by the early pioneers. Airflow simulation for winglets Embraer engineers used CFD to visualize flow patterns around wings for a design retrofit. Aircraft-engine-mounting analysis Engineers from Honeywell adapted a rapid analysis approach to develop and validate a complex propulsion system. Reshaping F-16 production Following its contract with the Joint Strike Fighter program, Lockheed Martin is reconfiguring its F-16 assembly line in preparation for long-term JSF production starting later this year.