AUTOMATED INSPECTION OF

AIRCRAFT
INTRODUCTION
 establish technical feasibility of using robotic systems in aircraft
maintenance facilities
 develop robotic tools to assist aircraft inspectors

Benefits
Improved Detection
 Improved Repeatability
Reduced Aircraft Downtime
Electronically Retrievable Inspection Data
 Improved Safety for Inspectors
 2. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

FINAL-PHASE DEVELOPMENT
• MECHANICAL
SYSTEM

• CONTROL SYSTEM

• SENSORS

• HUMAN-MACHINE
INTERFACE
 3. MECHANICAL SYSTEM
DETAILS
• MECHANICAL DESIGN OF FIRST-PHASE
ROBOT
• SECOND-PHASE MECHANICAL
IMPROVEMENTS

• SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

• LONG-TERM MECHANICAL DESIGN ISSUES

 ROBOT MOTIONS

Spine assembly
raised
Spine assembly
 WALKING MOTION motion
 ALIGNMENT MOTION. Spine assembly
lowered
Stabilizer bridge
moved
5 CONTROL SYSTEM DETAILS
• ON-BOARD ROBOT ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS
• GROUND-BASED ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS
• OPERATOR WORKSTATION COMPUTER
• SATELLITE EQUIPMENT ENCLOSURE
• control points
(On=White, Off=Gray)

• limit switches (On=Yellow,

Off=Gray)
•suction cups
(Vacuum=Green, Ambient
pressure=Red)

. CONTROL SYSTEM SOFTWARE

• NAVIGATION AND VISUALIZATION
 6. SENSOR SYSTEM DETAILS.
• EDDY-CURRENT SENSORS
 EDDY-CURRENT INSPECTION HARDWARE

 EDDY-CURRENT SENSOR CALIBRATION

 EDDY-CURRENT SOFTWARE

 EDDY-CURRENT FLAW DETECTION

• VISUAL SENSORS AND VIDEO-BASED RIVET LOCATION

ALGORITHMS.
 ROBOTICS INSTITUTE VIDEO RIVET LOCATION ALGORITHMS
CMRI VIDEO RIVET LOCATION ALGORITHMS
NEURAL NETWORK RESULTS
THIRD TRIAL: IMPROVED CAMERA SYSTEM
RIVET LINE-FITTING ALGORITHM

•FEEDBACK SWITCHES
 CONCLUSION
The robot was able to achieve the following goals:
adhering to and walking over an aircraft fuselage
regardless of the orientations of those surfaces,
acquiring eddy-current inspection data that appeared
identical to manually deployed eddy-current sensors,
and being remotely operated using video and sensor
feedback provided to the inspector. Video camera-
based automatic alignment and navigation were
demonstrated in an auxiliary experiment using a
separate robot moving on an aircraft skin surface.