Indoor Global Positioning Measurement System Application for the Aircraft Flexible Joint Assembly

This paper presents an indoor global positioning system (iGPS) that is capable of measuring components of complex geometry and large dimensions. Multi-object and large dimension measurement is very difficult for most of the available measurement systems. iGPS is the best solution for these kinds of measurement specially for aircraft flexible joint assembly. The iGPS Measurement assisted assembly (MAA) process for the accurate measurement of wing-to-fuselage junction is described. In this paper, the Major technical aspects of the iGPS measurement process for a flexible joint assembly are discussed for the users to realize its full potential prior to its deployments in real manufacturing environment. The system components of iGPS are several transmitters, sensors, receivers, and a central control console. The choice of the coordinate system, the layout of the transmitters, and the layout of the receiving sensors are the key issues for the iGPS. Theoretical results show that the iGPS measurement technology is very reliable for the aircraft flexible joint assembly. A fully automatic flexible assembly line for the airplane digital assembly may be setup by using the iGPS measurements technique in the future.