Aircraft Assembly Jig Emulator for Interface Validation
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Solution Overview
Problem
The integration of automated aircraft assembly jigs with various assembly machines and robots from different manufacturers poses challenges in ensuring safe and seamless communication, leading to uncertainty and potential delays due to bugs in signals and interfaces.
Innovation Solution
An emulator that mimics the electronic interfaces and responses of an automated aircraft assembly jig, allowing it to send and receive signals to and from automated equipment modules, thereby validating their interactions and ensuring operability before they work on actual aircraft assemblies.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If automated equipment modules from different manufacturers are integrated with the automated aircraft assembly jig, then productivity and automation extent are improved, but reliability and ease of operation deteriorate due to communication bugs and interface incompatibility
Solution Approach 1:
The emulator serves as an intermediary device that mediates between the automated aircraft assembly jig and external automated equipment modules. It replicates the jig's electronic interfaces and communication protocols, allowing equipment from different manufacturers to be tested and validated without direct connection to the actual assembly jig, thereby ensuring communication reliability while maintaining productivity benefits
Solution Approach 2:
The emulator creates a functional copy of the automated aircraft assembly jig's electronic interface and communication behavior. By replicating the jig's response patterns and signal protocols, it enables reliable testing and validation of external equipment without requiring the actual jig, thus resolving interface incompatibility issues while preserving automation capabilities
2Reliability
If automated equipment modules are tested and debugged before operation, then reliability is improved, but loss of time increases due to validation procedures
Solution Approach 1:
The emulator enables preliminary testing and validation of automated equipment modules before they are connected to the actual aircraft assembly jig. By performing all necessary communication checks, signal debugging, and operational validation in advance using the emulator, the system ensures reliability while actually reducing total time loss, as issues are resolved before final integration
Data Source
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AI summary
An emulator (30) configured to emulate an automated aircraft assembly jig (10) supporting an aircraft assembly (11), the emulator connectable to an automated equipment module (20) and configured to: send a first signal to an automated equipment module, wherein the first signal is representative of a communication to the automated equipment module; and receive a second signal from the automated equipment module representative of a communication from the automated equipment module, wherein the automated equipment module is arranged to operate autonomously on an aircraft assembly.