A novel posture alignment system for aircraft wing assembly

A novel 6-degree of freedom (DOF) posture alignment system, based on 3-DOF positioners, is presented for the assembly of aircraft wings. Each positioner is connected with the wing through a rotational and adsorptive half-ball shaped end-effector, and the positioners together with the wing are considered as a 3-PPPS (P denotes a prismatic joint and S denotes a spherical joint) redundantly actuated parallel mechanism. The kinematic model of this system is established and a trajectory planning method is introduced. A complete analysis of inverse dynamics is carried out with the Newton-Euler algorithm, which is used to find the desired actuating torque in the design and path planning phase. Simulation analysis of the displacement and actuating torque of each joint of the positioners based on inverse kinematics and dynamics is conducted, and the results show that the system is feasible for the posture alignment of aircraft wings.

Stiffness of Postural Alignment System Based on 3-Axis Actuators for Large Aircraft Components

Aircraft digital flexible assembly fixture and technologies are widely used in developed countries, while the traditional jig-based assembly mode is still used in China. The application study of aircraft digital flexible assembly system is just beginning in our country recently. To meet the requirements of automated posture alignment and join in digital assembly system for large aircraft components, a novel fitting fixture called 3-axis actuator is developed. On the basis of the actuators, three kinds of posture alignment system for large aircraft components are proposed, including the non-redundant system, the redundant actuating system, and the redundant leg system, and their constitutions and properties are introduced. Through deriving the feeding transmission stiffness model of single actuator and analyzing the inverse kinematics of these systems, the relationship between the external force and the changes of position and orientation of large aircraft component is obtained, and then the postural alignment stiffness models are established. With the method mentioned above, the postural alignment stiffness of three systems is computed by using the algebraic formulate, and the results show that redundant properties can increase system＇s postural alignment stiffness. As an example, a optimized layout of the assembly system for a given model of aircraft is developed, the results of application show that the layout has many advantages, such as high accuracy, stiffness, stability, reliability, efficiency and flexible, which can satisfy the requirement of aircraft digital assembly system well. The proposed study of postural alignment stiffness for different systems can supply the theoretic support for the optimization layout design of aircraft digital assembly system, and contribute to evaluate the system working performance of systems.