Demonstration of Transformable Manufacturing Systems through the Evolvable Assembly Systems Project

Sanderson, David; Turner, Alison; Shires, Emma; Chaplin, Jack; Ratchev, Svetan

Abstract

© 2019 SAE International. All Rights Reserved. Evolvable Assembly Systems is a five year UK research council funded project into flexible and reconfigurable manufacturing systems. The principal goal of the research programme has been to define and validate the vision and support architecture, theoretical models, methods and algorithms for Evolvable Assembly Systems as a new platform for open, adaptable, context-aware and cost effective production. The project is now coming to a close; the concepts developed during the project have been implemented on a variety of demonstrators across a number of manufacturing domains including automotive and aerospace assembly. This paper will show the progression of demonstrators and applications as they increase in complexity, specifically focussing on the Future Automated Aerospace Assembly Phase 1 technology demonstrator (FA3D). The FA3D Phase 1 demonstrated automated assembly of aerospace products using precision robotic processes in conjunction with low-cost reconfigurable fixturing supported by large volume metrology. This was underpinned by novel agent-based control for transformable batch-size-of-one production. The paper will conclude by introducing Phase 2 of the Future Automated Aerospace Assembly Demonstrator - currently in development - that will translate the Evolvable Assembly Systems research to a higher technology readiness level and address the challenges of scalable and transformable manufacturing systems.

Citation

Sanderson, D., Turner, A., Shires, E., Chaplin, J., & Ratchev, S. (2019). Demonstration of Transformable Manufacturing Systems through the Evolvable Assembly Systems Project. SAE Technical Papers, Article 2019-01-1363. https://doi.org/10.4271/2019-01-1363

• Journal Article Type: Conference Paper
• Conference Name: AeroTech Americas 2019
• Acceptance Date: Jul 7, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Mar 19, 2019
• Publication Date: Mar 19, 2019
• Deposit Date: Nov 5, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 5, 2019
• Journal: SAE Technical Papers
• Electronic ISSN: 0148-7191
• Publisher: SAE International
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Article Number: 2019-01-1363
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4271/2019-01-1363
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3060297
• Publisher URL: https://saemobilus.sae.org/content/2019-01-1363/