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.

A Reconfigurable Manufacturing System for In-site Machining Component with Large Scale

To cope with various unpredictable changes in large scale parts,the concept of reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) for machining these components is presented.Considering with large-size space measurement and the fixed-free manufacture mode,an automatically localizing machining method for large scale part is studied in this paper,and the architecture of the RMS for machining large scale parts is proposed.According to the method and structure,the automatically localizing model is established.The theoretical analysis and simulation examples demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the proposed method,and the results indicate that the method is suitable and effective for machining large scale components in significant scientific projects.

A multi-constraints based pose coordination model for large volume components assembly

In the assembly process of large volume product,engineering constraints limit the relative pose of components and serve as a standard for judging assembly quality.However,in the traditional process of target pose estimation,a general method is needed for establishing the correlation between engineering constraints and product pose,and it is difficult to evaluate pose by constraints comprehensively.Therefore,the process of target pose estimation and evaluation is separated.In this paper,a pose coordination model based on multi-constraints is proposed,which includes pre-processing,pose estimation,pose adjustment and evaluation.Firstly,engineering constraints are decoupled into 4 types of Minimum Geometrical Reference Constraints(MGRC),and the inequalities for solving target pose are formulated.Then the Constraint Coordination Index(CCI)is defined as the optimization objective to solve the target pose.Finally,with CCI as the numerical index,the target pose is evaluated to illustrate the quality of assembly.Taking the simulation experiment of wing-fuselage jointing as an example,the external and internal parameters of model are analyzed,and the pose estimation based on multi-constraints reduces the CCI by 12%,compared with the point-set-registration method.

A new principle and device for large aircraft components gaining accurate support by ball joint

How to obtain an accurate support for large components by ball joint is a key process in aircraft digital assembly. A novel principle and device is developed to solve the problem. Firstly, the working principle of the device is introduced. When three or four displacement sensors installed in the localizer are touched by the ball-head, the spatial relation is calculated between the large aircraft component's ball-head and the localizer's ball-socket. The localizer is driven to achieve a new position by compensation. Relatively, a support revising algorithm is proposed. The localizer's ball-socket approaches the ball-head based on the displacement sensors. According to the points selected from its spherical surface, the coordinates of ball-head spherical center are computed by geometry. Finally, as a typical application, the device is used to conduct a test-fuselage's ball-head into a localizer's ball-socket. Positional deviations of the spherical centers between the ball-head and the ball-socket in the x, y, and z directions are all controlled within ±0.05 mm under various working conditions. The results of the experiments show that the device has the characteristics of high precision, excellent stability, strong operability, and great potential to be applied widely in the modern aircraft industry.

Research on uncertainty in measurement assisted alignment in aircraft assembly

Operations in assembling and joining large size aircraft components are changed to novel digital and flexible ways by digital measurement assisted alignment.Positions and orientations（P＆O）of aligned components are critical characters which assure geometrical positions and relationships of those components.Therefore,evaluating the P＆O of a component is considered necessary and critical for ensuring accuracy in aircraft assembly.Uncertainty of position and orientation（U-P＆O）,as a part of the evaluating result of P＆O,needs to be given for ensuring the integrity and credibility of the result;furthermore,U-P＆O is necessary for error tracing and quality evaluating of measurement assisted aircraft assembly.However,current research mainly focuses on the process integration of measurement with assembly,and usually ignores the uncertainty of measured result and its influence on quality evaluation.This paper focuses on the expression,analysis,and application of U-P＆O in measurement assisted alignment.The geometrical and algebraical connotations of U-P＆O are presented.Then,an analytical algorithm for evaluating the multi-dimensional U-P＆O is given,and the effect factors and characteristics of U-P＆O are discussed.Finally,U-P＆O is used to evaluate alignment in aircraft assembly for quality evaluating and improving.Cases are introduced with the methodology.