A High Reliable Automated Percussive Riveting System for Aircraft Assembly

Percussive riveting is a widely used way of fastening in the field of aircraft assembly, which used to be done manually. Nowadays, replacing the traditional percussive riveting with automated percussive riveting becomes a trend worldwide, which improves the quality of riveting significantly. For the automated riveting system used in aircraft assembly, reliability is of great importance, deserving to be deeply researched and fully enhanced. In this paper, a high reliable automated percussive riveting system integrated into a dual robot drilling and riveting system is proposed. The riveting system consists of the hammer part and the bucking bar part. And both parts have been optimized to enhance the reliability. In the hammer side, proximity switches are fully used to detect the state of rivet insertion. In the bucking bar side, a reliable step height measurement system is integrated to measure the exposed shank length of the rivet before riveting and the upsetting head height after riveting. Meanwhile, a reliable method is proposed to calibrate the measurement system. By measuring the exposed shank length of the rivet before riveting, the riveting system can judge whether the rivet has been inserted into the hole and whether the length specification of the rivet is appropriate. By measuring the upsetting head height after riveting, the riveting system can realize online monitoring of riveting quality. All the above measures enhance the reliability of the riveting system. At last, an experiment is carried out, the result indicates that the automated percussive riveting system can conduct high-quality and reliable riveting.