Variation Reduction Solutions, Inc. (VRSI) has created a partnership with Comau Pico to address the Air Force's stated desire to increase the use of robotics in aerospace manufacturing. Standard articulating arm robots are not currently in widespread use due to their inability to hold aerospace… More

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC) has a contract with Lockheed Martin to design, build, and produce the center fuselage section of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF F-35). There are three ducts which are the primary components of this section - the aft duct and two forward (inlet) ducts - right and… More

The field of high-precision manufacturing, especially in the aerospace industry, has traditionally required either manual processes or the use of monolithic Cartesian NC-type machines. There are many justifications for the desire to use articulated arm robots to perform these tasks. While recent… More

The initial focus of this solicitation is for the establishment of an automated affordable, accurate dimensional control of aircraft OML structures for the military aircraft production line. The Air Force is supporting the expansion of manufacturing capacity via automated metrology systems for… More

The authors establish a novel metrology system capable of determining the pose of a robotically-mounted End of Arm Tool (EOAT) in Six Degrees of Freedom (6-DOF) to a capability better than True Position (TP) 0.010 in. The metrology system consists of low-cost, modular components in the form of… More

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ABSTRACT: Our team will develop a method for applying exact controlled amounts of highly viscous Liquid Shim material within established Production process specifications for aircraft structure through an automated direct mixing/dispensing application tool. Currently, liquid shim is applied using… More

ABSTRACT: Objective: Develop a method for measuring the depth of holes drilled through stacks of material with minimal impact to the drilling process to replace manual grip measurements. Description: Variability in the manufacturing process of aircraft skins and understructure components results… More

ABSTRACT: Sorting, solvent-cleaning, promoting, delivering, sealing and installing 30,000 fasteners per day is a critical task required for full-rate production of the F-35 Lightning II. These 30,000 fasteners are comprised of approximately 350 unique part numbers and each must receive one of… More