Lightweight Auto-crawling Drilling & Riveting System For Aircraft Assembly

With the continuous progress of the large aircraft project, the traditional method for drilling and fastening the abutments of the large parts could not fulfill the requirement of the aircraft assembly, so the need for a new way is put forward. To counter this problem, the structure and the control technology of an automatic crawling robotic drilling and fastening system is studied, which is guided by the design principle of light-weight, modularization, flexibility, and combined with the requirement from the function and technology of the system. The integrated control system for the mobile platform and the drilling and fastening machine is also realized. The study, which could solve the problem in the aircraft assembly area, is illustrated by this paper in the following aspects:(1) The requirement from the function is analyzed, and two structure formats of mobile platform for different pose adjustment methods are put forward, then the function modules of the drilling and fastening end effector is elucidated, and finally the ultimate structure of the system is formed. The combination and the process planning of the system is elaborated, and the integrated control planning is also studied.(2) Based on the specific technology requirements, the detailed structure design for the mobile platform and the modules of the end effector has been laid out. And the key parts are lightweighted, through the combination of theoretical calculation and finite element simulation.(3) The overall structure of the integrated control system is introduced, the mobile platform is servo controlled, and the strategy for the control of single-axis or multi-axis is put forward, and the safety control mechanism for the vacuum circuit is devised. Besides, integrated with the control terminals, the electrical and pneumatic control for the drilling and fastening end effector is also studied in detail.(4) The experimental plan to test the drilling and fastening system is put forward, then the motion simulation for the system and solutions to the interference are accomplished. A testing platform for the vacuum suckers is build up, and the experiment results confirm that the reliability of the vacuum suckers could guarantee the safety of the system while it is in use.