The University of Nottingham’s Centre for Aerospace Manufacturing (CAM) works closely with the European aerospace industry leaders to deliver translational industrially focused research in future aerospace assembly systems.

The Future Automated Aerospace Assembly Demonstrator (FA3D) platform is the testbed where newly developed innovative and ground-breaking assembly methods and solutions for cost-effective future aerospace manufacture are tested and validated.

The cell combines intelligent fixturing, automation systems, advanced process end effectors, integrated safety systems, spatially-aware RFID tracking, state-of-the-art metrology systems, and integrated informatics to deliver reconfigurable, evolvable cells capable of significant product variation, which are variability aware and which enable batch sizes of one.

The demonstrator platform allowed for aerospace companies to test and validate future information-rich assembly methods for aerostructures, using metrology data integrated with robot controllers to compensate for variability in assembly, and to achieve fixtureless assembly of aerostructures.  

Large, highly integrated manufacturing systems are characterised by complex data systems that enable the manufacturing process. This is exacerbated when you need to integrate additional software platforms that analyses data (such as metrology data) to adapt manufacturing processes).

Due to a lack of common standards, it is common for manufacturers to stick to a single vendor of digital solutions, to ensure compatibility. However, this can exclude a company from taking advantage of the latest developments (such as the laser radar used here).

FA3D uses a manufacturing systems bus concept to enable a manufacturing system to be easily reconfigurable from a logical control perspective, and to integrate multi-vendor equipment and software into a single source of data which is used throughout.

Aerospace assembly is characterised by the tight tolerances required – deviations over 0.1mm from nominal can cause significant aerodynamic effects. Simultaneously, aerospace components need to be lightweight, and are often flexible until assembled into their final structure.

Commonly, large jigs and fixtures are used to ensure alignment in aerospace assembly, but these are costly and time consuming to create, and represent a substantial cost, particularly for low batches of aerostructures.

FA3D utilised advanced metrology systems such as laser radar and optical coordinate measurement machines to achieve accurate measurement of parts over large volumes.

Data from these metrology readings is directly integrated with the robotic controllers to adjust the positioning of parts to bring them back into tolerance, and hold them in place while fasteners are inserted, effectively replacing the need for fixtures.