Future Automated Aerospace Assembly Demonstrator

The University of Nottingham’s Centre for Aerospace Manufacturing (CAM) works closely with the European aerospace industry leaders to deliver translational industrially focused research in future aerospace assembly systems.

The Future Automated Aerospace Assembly Demonstrator (FA3D) platform is the testbed where newly developed innovative and ground-breaking assembly methods and solutions for cost-effective future aerospace manufacture are tested and validated.

The cell combines intelligent fixturing, automation systems, advanced process end effectors, integrated safety systems, spatially-aware RFID tracking, state-of-the-art metrology systems, and integrated informatics to deliver reconfigurable, evolvable cells capable of significant product variation, which are variability aware and which enable batch sizes of one.

The demonstrator platform allowed for aerospace companies to test and validate future information-rich assembly methods for aerostructures, using metrology data integrated with robot controllers to compensate for variability in assembly, and to achieve fixtureless assembly of aerostructures.