Development of a Compact Robotic Fastening System for Enclosed Wing Assembly

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MHI Canada Aerospace Inc. (MHICA), a group company of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, is a Tier 1 manufacturer of airframe assemblies. The company was created in 2006 based in Mississauga Ontario and it has progressively grown in capability and capacity with a new facility created in 2012. Fastening is a main manufacturing method for airframe assembly that is traditionally performed manually. Manual fastening operations are tedious, repetitious, prone to error, and could cause health and ergonomic problems. Since its inception, MHICA has been very innovative in developing automatic airframe assembly systems. Currently, the company is looking for an effective way of automating the wing assembly process. This is a challenging problem in that the work space is enclosed, very narrow and difficult to access for fastening. Therefore, the objective of this research project is to develop a compact robotic fastening system for enclosed area assembly. The proposed robot is designed as a portable wheeled robot arm with a toolhead attached to the robot end-effector. Five topics will be covered in this research project. The first topic is the identification of accessibility space for a given enclosed assembly area. The second topic is the design of the toolhead that is capable of torqueing a nut. The third topic is the design of a compact robot that can navigate through the enclosed area for fastening. The fourth topic is the quick alignment of the robot with the workpiece. The last issue is safety that the robot will work with the operator on the same assembly floor without the need to completely vacate the adjacent area. Since airframe assembly takes about 50% of the Canadian aerospace manufacturing business, the ssuccessful completion of this project will enable airframe assembly companies like MHICA to improve its capability. Therefore, this project will potentially contribute towards the growth of the Canadian aerospace sector by developing innovative systems and training engineering graduates in this area.