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This paper deals with issues about Orbital drilling implementation and evaluation. The paper summarizes and includes the so far written papers about Orbital drilling. In a previous paper, a conclusion was made, orbital drilling is a suitable method for drilling high quality holes in the specific space application that was studied. The conclusion for further development was then to look more specifically into the process development, i.e. cutting parameters, new cutters, new coatings on cutters etc. Then the investigation and feasibility study started. The project went from early prestudy to fully implemented industrialized solution of the PODU at SAAB Ericsson Space (SES) in Linköping, Sweden. More detailed description on how the project did it is explained in the paper. The early conclusions made after pre- and final acceptance tests of the PODU at SES shows that Orbital drilling is a comprehensive method compared to conventionally drilling methods.

In this paper solution for low-cost automation of aircraft assembly is presented. The concept of this development is closely related to “Lean Automation”, which in this case concerns the use of modern standard equipment such as standard robots, PC-computers and a newly developed spatial sensor system for precision measurements of positions. The robot is used to perform reconfiguration of tooling modules that are possible to be configured/reconfigured in six degrees of freedom. A prototype developed as the result of an EU-project called ADFAST* has been evaluated at Linköping University in Sweden. Technical functionality is reported where the robot manages to configure the flexible tooling modules to a total error bellow 50 μm. This paper presents the results on the portion of the project addressing robot, metrology system and tooling.

This paper presents preliminary result in a flexible fixture solution for airframe assembly comprising a modular steel framework called Box-joint and flexible tooling modules called Hexapods. The solution is comprises a framework that is screwed together instead of welding beams together, which enables re-building the framework when performing change-over in a more extensive reconfiguration. The Hexapods are parallel legged passive fixture stands that can change their configuration to facilitate easy setup in a change-over between handle different assemblies. A solution to configure the Hexapods manually is described. The investment cost can be kept low by using a metrology system to provide for high accuracy in the tool configuration process instead of using precision parts in the fixture system.

This paper presents preliminary result in a flexible fixture solution for airframe assembly comprising a modular steel framework called Box-joint and flexible tooling modules called Hexapods. The solution is comprises a framework that is screwed together instead of welding beams together, which enables re-building the framework when performing change-over in a more extensive reconfiguration. The Hexapods are parallel legged passive fixture stands that can change their configuration to facilitate easy setup in a change-over between handle different assemblies. A solution to configure the Hexapods manually is described. The investment cost can be kept low by using a metrology system to provide for high accuracy in the tool configuration process instead of using precision parts in the fixture system.