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This paper reviews today's aircraft wing production assembly methodology and technologies as well as innovative ideas for advancing the high-level wing assembly state-of-the-art. Automated wing assembly systems are only being utilized to rivet/fasten first level subassemblies like panels, spars, and ribs. All other high level assembly tasks are performed manually, incurring associated increases in recurring costs due to production inefficiencies, long lead times, expensive rate tooling, and difficult assembly tasks performed inside small wing compartments. Existing assembly methods, process parameters, and the process characteristics of manual, machine, and man/machine systems provide many opportunities for improving wing assembly.

Due to the part size and technological limitations of the available assembly equipment, traditional wing manufacturing has consisted of a three stage process. Parts are first manually tacked together in an assembly jig, They are then removed from the jig, rotated horizontally and craned into an automated fastening machine. Finally they are removed from the fastening machines and craned to a third station where the manual tacks are removed and the parts are prepped for final wing box assembly. With the advent of electromagnetic riveting (EMR) and the traveling yoke assembly machine this traditional approach has been replaced with single station processing. Wing panels and spars can now be automatically tacked together under continuous clamp up in their assembly jigs using EMR. This eliminates the requirement for disassembly, debur and cleaning required with the manual process.

The automotive and the aerospace industries are constantly looking at optimizing their production with cost effective and versatile material separation processes suitable for machining three-dimensional parts (3D) in all kind of materials. Automation with robots has become quite common for manufacturing large serials of parts with constant quality and accuracy, avoiding risks for the operator. This paper will deal with robotised waterjet cutting used to cut automotive floor carpets and other interior trim parts such as headliners, instrument panels, door panels, trunk liners, acoustical insulation, parcel shelves and some fiberglass reinforced components. Furthermore we will talk about robotised routing, a suitable alternative for machining some of the above mentioned components. We will also describe abrasive waterjet, ideal for cutting 3D components made of metals, alloys and thick composites.

This paper has been withdrawn and is no longer available.

The research offices and the automobile systems offices which became highly competitive in the areas of computerized design, from design and manufacturing of defined parts beginning with surface areas, have now discovered potentials for informational systems suggesting creative design and production control. In the same fashion, the power of the calculation units and the increasing performances of graphics, at constantly diminishing costs, have allowed planning for use of more complex computers. Thus, the systems designers of CFAO were able to set up third generation products: after the "2 dimensions" then the "3 dimensions" surface, the "3 dimension" volumetric integrating complex left sides has been put into use.

In the next 20 years fully autonomous vehicles are expected to be in the market. The advance on their development is creating paradigm shifts on different automotive related research areas. Vehicle interiors design and human vehicle interaction are evolving to enable interaction flexibility inside the cars. However, most of today’s vehicle manufacturers’ autonomous car concepts maintain the steering wheel as a control element. While this approach allows the driver to take over the vehicle route if needed, it causes a constraint in the previously mentioned interaction flexibility. Other approaches, such as the one proposed by Google, enable interaction flexibility by removing the steering wheel and accelerator and brake pedals. However, this prevents the users to take control over the vehicle route if needed, not allowing them to make on-route spontaneous decisions, such as stopping at a specific point of interest.

The increasingly complex products and intelligent environment in automotive and transportation technology need to employ the intelligent tools called robots. To be able to solve a difficult and complex problem robot needs to cooperate with other robots. In this process experts from different disciplines utilize different form of knowledge that requires knowledge integration. In order to facilitate knowledge integration one of the forms of visualization can be used. Visual thinking is strictly connected with understanding of the visual forms. The aim of this research is to investigate the visual thinking capabilities of the intelligent systems in different aspects of the problem solving and communication abilities. This research is continuation of the authors previous work focused on investigating understanding capabilities of the intelligent systems based on the shape understanding system (SUS).

As part of an ongoing collaborative research project between The University of Nottingham and Bombardier Aerospace a pair of end-effectors have been developed that allow solid riveting of aircraft fuselage panels to be performed using conventional robots. This paper describes the development and performance testing of a compact process monitoring system and its integration into the riveting end-effector and testing. The developed process monitoring system is based around a miniature CCD camera combined with a novel structured lighting system. The combination of the structured lighting system with image processing techniques means that good quality images of the drilled and countersunk holes and rivets can be obtained despite the confined environment and highly reflective materials involved. The impact of the system on the overall cycle time is also minimised.

The Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM), a non-profit consortium based in Prince George County, Virginia, uses a 3D visualization lab to expand beyond the walls of its 62,000-square-foot brick and mortar facility and deliver a collaborative development for researchers in industry, academia, and government.

Deneb's Interactive Graphic Robot Instruction Progam (IGRIP) and Envision software packages with the Ergonomic analysis option enabled were used for manufacturing process analysis and maintainability / human factors design evaluation in the Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems - Fort Worth facility. The initial objective of both the manufacturing and maintainability engineering community was to validate the use of ergonomic modeling and simulation tools in an effort to gain acceptance of this new technology. Each discipline selected an existing operation to baseline the validation. Manufacturing selected the F-16 vertical fin as it is assembled from detail parts into a complete assembly, ready to be mated to the aircraft. Maintainability selected the removal of the Expanded Data Entry Electronics Unit (EXDEEU) located behind the ejection seat of the F-16 aircraft.

Never in the history of the automotive industry has it been more critical for automakers to prove that they are capable of producing vehicles efficiently and cost-effectively. In the coming months and years there will be a growing requirement for lean product design and manufacturing strategies that will re-shape the way the automotive suppliers and OEMs conduct business. Computer-aided-design and manufacturing have become commonplace in automotive product design and manufacturing processes. These technologies enable efficiencies and quality improvements through virtual simulation and testing of kinematic designs. However, to date, there has been no ability to incorporate the process controls into these simulations. Vehicle introductions require new manufacturing processes and equipment which is typically outsourced by the OEMs to a supplier.

Analyses are currently being conducted in the Man-Systems Division of the NASA Johnson Space Center, on the restructured Space Station Freedom configuration to determine viewing requirements for both robotic tasks and for extravehicular crew activities. The use of the PLAID software, a 3-D modeling simulation tool, provides a simulation of the environment and the system hardware to identify potential problem areas needing further refinement in design development. This process enables human factors considerations and issues to be explored during the design process, to identify and correct problems before hardware is actually constructed. Preliminary results have identified several potential viewing problem areas with the available lighting for both robotic and extravehicular activity (EVA) tasks.

Pulsed assembly lines are providing an enormous potential to the aviation industry, especially in terms of reduced lead times, optimized asset utilization and an increased ratio of value adding processes. As it comes near to flow manufacturing the realization of a pulsed assembly line leads to special requirements to the use of NC programs for automated drilling and fastening processes, especially as a result of the unique part positions upon each pulse and concerning the balancing of the work onto several serialized fastening machines. The key to those challenges are versatile NC part programs that eliminate the need for any additionally written NC programs by self-adapting onto the concrete situation within the working areas of the production line.

To evaluate driver perception of a vehicle powertrain a moving base simulator is a well-established technique. We are connecting the moving base simulator Sim III, at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute with a newly built chassis dynamometer at Vehicular Systems, Linköping University. The purpose of the effort is to enhance fidelity of moving base simulators by letting drivers experience an actual powertrain. At the same time technicians are given a new tool for evaluating powertrain solutions in a controlled environment. As a first step the vehicle model from the chassis dynamometer system has been implemented in Sim III. Interfacing software was developed and an optical fiber covering the physical distance of 500 m between the facilities is used to connect the systems. Further, a pedal robot has been developed that uses two linear actuators pressing the accelerator and brake pedals.

This research focused on developing a methodology for a vehicle dynamics model of a passenger vehicle outfitted with an aftermarket Automated Driving System software package using only literature and track based results. This package consisted of Autoware.AI (Autoware ®) operating on Robot Operating System 1 (ROS™) with C++ and Python ®. Initial focus was understanding the basics of ROS and how to implement test scenarios in Python to characterize the control systems and dynamics of the vehicle. As understanding of the system continued to develop, test scenarios were adapted to better fit system characterization goals with identification of system configuration limits. Trends from on-track testing were identified and paired with first-order linear systems to simulate physical vehicle responses to given command inputs. Sub-models were developed and simulated in MATLAB ® with command inputs from on-track testing.

Remotely operating complex robotic mechanisms in unstructured natural environments is difficult at best. When the communications time delay is large, as for a Mars exploration rover operated from Earth, the difficulties become enormous. Conventional approaches, such as rate control of the rover actuators, are too inefficient and risky. The Intelligent Mechanisms Laboratory at the NASA Ames Research Center has developed over the past four years an architecture for operating science exploration robots in the presence of large communications time delays. The operator interface of this system is called the Virtual Environment Vehicle Interface (VEVI), and draws heavily on Virtual Environment (or Virtual Reality) technology. This paper describes the current operational version of VEVI, which we refer to as version 2.0. In this paper we will describe the VEVI design philosophy and implementation, and will describe some past examples of its use in field science exploration missions.

Image segmentation has historically been a technique for analyzing terrain for military autonomous vehicles. One of the weaknesses of image segmentation from camera data is that it lacks depth information, and it can be affected by environment lighting. Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is an emerging technology in image segmentation that is able to estimate distances to the objects it detects. One advantage of LiDAR is the ability to gather accurate distances regardless of day, night, shadows, or glare. This study examines LiDAR and camera image segmentation fusion to improve an advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) algorithm for off-road autonomous military vehicles. The volume of points generated by LiDAR provides the vehicle with distance and spatial data surrounding the vehicle.

In an attempt to be more flexible and cost effective, Aerospace Manufacturers have increasingly chosen to adapt a manufacturing style which borrows heavily from the Automotive industry. To facilitate this change in methodologies a system for locating robots has been developed which utilizes cameras for both locating and guidance of a mobile platform for a robot with drilling and fastening end effector.

Software and electronic circuits are commonly used with mechanical components today. In the past, the design of functionally sufficient and robust mechanical components was always completed by experienced mechanical engineers. This is changing, however. The requirements of additional functionality and reduced price have led to the introduction of mechatronics - mechanical parts augmented with electronic hardware controlled by software. Designing and verifying such a system is a challenge that requires a change in methodology as two very different engineering disciplines collide. This paper illustrates a simulation-based design methodology for software controlled, electro-mechanical components using an autonomous mobile robot as an example. VHDL-AMS, the Analog-Mixed-Signal extension (IEEE 1076.1) of the digital hardware description language VDHL, was used as the main modeling language.

Designs for future exploration of Mars that include the use of resources obtained on the martian surface can greatly expand the range of exploration compared with those that reply only on material carried from Earth. In addition, the use of in situ resources provides a step in the direction of a self-sufficient settlement. The key resources are: O2, H2O and buffer gas (either N2 or N2/Ar). Promising laboratory scale prototypes are already under development and the production of oxygen may be practical even on near-term robotic missions. Preliminary calculations suggest that water will be difficult to produce on Mars. This detriment is partially offset by the ease of storage of water. Buffer gas is a requirement for a breathable gas mixture and either N2 or N2 /Ar gases can be produced from the martian atmosphere.