The automation of assembly processes in aircraft production is, due to technological and organizational boundary conditions, very difficult and is subject to technological challenges and economical risks. The technological challenges are especially the large product dimensions as well as the high amount of variants. At the same time, aircrafts are produced in low quantities with inflexible and expensive fixtures.
As part of the research projects TRSE (semi-automated robot welding for single item production) and 4by3 (Modularity, Safety, Usability, Efficiency by Human-Robot-Collaboration) at ZeMA, the goal is to develop new process technologies, planning tools and adequate equipment in order to enable efficient and customized automation for various production processes.
The human-robot-cooperation is an approach to a required, adjusted and flexible automation. Worker and robot work together without a separating protection device in an overlapping workspace.
The idea is to support the worker in the production process with a sensitive robot to achieve a higher process efficiency and an improvement of quality.