DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTIROBOT MULTITASK SCENARIO FOR AUTOMATED QUALITY ASSURED PATCH PREFORMING

Abstract

Reduction of weight in components for aerospace applications is one of the driving factors in industrial research in the field of aviation. Less weight of structural components results in a lower fuel consumption during flight. As a result, more cargo or passengers can be transported. An approach to achieve this, is to use materials with lower weight but comparable mechanical properties. One of those materials are carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP). The production of CFRP components with less challenging properties like low gradients in thickness or curvature is at least partly automated and state of the art. However, automated layup of complex structural parts in great variation of geometries combined with small production numbers is still a technological challenge. A possible solution is the application of a highly flexible, multi-robot scenario which can both handle the sensitive materials and apply in-line quality assurance measures. One robot is equipped with the end effector and a highly accurate optical system. This optical system is used to detect individual cut-pieces on a material carrier. When the correct cut-piece is detected industrial robots grip the cut-piece and place them on top of each other. Another robot equipped with quality assurance sensor is measuring the fiber orientation. To handle all the process data, including part and process specific data as well as the acquired in-line quality assurance data, an in-house developed data management system is used. The high grade of automation supported by database supported in-line quality assurance could enable the certification of an automated patch preforming process for aviation applications.