In all modern automated assembly it is essential to be able to
accommodate all kind of processes like surface detection, drilling,
countersinking, orbital drilling, cleaning, sealing, and assembly,
without having to develop special equipment for each and every
application, and it is also important that an automated system can
be adapted to various shapes and materials on large parts, such as
wings and fuselages, as well as smaller parts like flaps and
doors.
Historically this type of assembly has always required large,
heavy-duty, expensive machines designed and built with (and for)
high accuracy over the entire work envelope and consequentially
such large machines been generally very complex and normally
financially and physically impossible to build with more than one
spindle/assembly tool.
To meet above challenges the aerospace industry must adapt
automotive thinking using multiple process units such as articular
arm robots, but in contrary to automotive the processes in
aerospace are highly accurate and have to be performed in tough
materials like composite and titanium, and for such operations
conventional articular arm robots used in the automotive industry
is not suitable.
The new Exechon Parallel Kinematics technology is a standard
modular "machine tool robotics system" combining the
flexibility and dynamics of articular arm robots with the accuracy
and stiffness of CNC machines. This new patented design gives these
modules extreme mobility and, in combination with adapting
technologies such as cross lasers and force sensors, it can perform
accurate agile assembly over very large areas without the use of
accurate large expensive heavy-duty structures.
The modular system is also designed especially to achieve the
goal of adapting all kind of standard "off the shelf
technologies" incorporating such technologies in automated
aerospace systems using automotive thinking with standard tool
changers, etc.
It has been a tradition within aerospace to use multiple
processing heads meaning that a huge end-effector is positioned on
a surface, and a complete cycle of drilling, countersinking,
cleaning, sealing, and assembly of, e.g., a Hi-Lok® is performed
before moving to next position.
However, using above described Exechon modular system with
standard tool changers, and automotive thinking where the time to
make a tool change is divided by the number of operations per tool,
a new way of aerospace assembly is possible.
For example, if the Exechon module uses its high dynamics to
drill 100 holes within its work envelope, and then changes tool to
a counter sink and perform 100 countersinks, the tool change time
shall be divide by 100, and if the tool change time is 10 seconds
this operation adds no more than 0,1 seconds to each hole and
operation (10/100=0,1), and it's hard even for a multiple
processing end-effector to make a tool change in that time.
Further to above, the Exechon modular system has the cost
advantages and reliability of articular arm robot systems, and we
believe it will contribute to high-quality cost-efficient aerospace
assembly.