Enabling manual assembly and integration of aerospace structures for Industry 4.0 - methods

Digitalization is continuously entering production. However, most concepts are dealing with sensor integration and actuation as well as inter-machine data exchange and communication. They are therefore mainly useful in production areas, which are highly automated already. Aerospace industry is, comparable to the assembly of other large technical structures like railway-cars and machine tools as well as steel and plant construction in general, driven by manual assembly. The aim of the presented research work is to develop methods that make more use of digitalization in these production areas. As a real-time interface to digital planning and numerical decision-making, numerous ubiquitous computing devices such as smartglasses, tablet computer and smartphones are evaluated. Graphical user interfaces for data representation and devices for data input are developed and tested specifically for the needs of production areas. Functioning as a back end, a planning algorithm is being developed, which will be able to answer requests and fault reports by the worker immediately. It is based on graph theory to represent the planned assembly sequence as well as a set of rules that allow real-time decision-making by balancing between alternative actions. The assembly and integration of Ariane 6 upper composite in the Ariane Group plant in Bremen is being used as a case study.