Solution for Automated Drilling in Composite Structures with a Standard Articulating Robot System

Abstract

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Manual drilling in carbon fiber and mixed material structures is a labor and cost intensive process. Therefore, the aircraft manufacturers are constantly investigating flexible and cost-effective automation solutions to improve their production solutions. These objectives inspire us, as a supplier of aircraft assembly equipment, to develop robot and end-effector technologies to fulfill the customer's requirement for a highly accurate, robotic based drilling system for varying aerospace applications.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">This paper presents an innovative robot cell for drilling different aircraft parts consisting of CFRP and aluminum. The required absolute positioning accuracy is reached by using a proprietary compensation package for the robot that was developed by BROETJE-Automation. The new robot cell is based on a scalable system configuration which provides for the future extension of the work envelope and the integration of automated blind fastening. This solution demonstrates how standard robots equipped with a mature and production proven compensation method by BROETJE-Automation satisfied the requirements for a highly flexible, cost-efficient, and light weight automation production response.</div></div>