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ROBAIR Project
A robot designed to climb over the fuselage and wing areas of
aircraft and inspect rows of rivets for loose rivets and cracks.
This is a European Craft program,
G4ST-CT-2000-50028:"Development of a Robotic System for the
Inspection of Aircraft Wings and Fuselage".
Abbreviated title: ROBAIR
Partners: London South Bank
University, TWI Ltd, Zenon, SonaTest, Kontrol Technik, NDT
Consultants, Technical University of Sophia, Frontier Systems,
Ideasis Ltd.
The vacuum adhesion climbing robot provides motion on aircraft
wings and fuselage. Mass = 20 kg. On-board control systems with
teleoperation from an operator PC via a twisted pair. Flexible
feet adjust to a range of surface curvatures. Vacuum sensors
check for adequate adhesion before allowing robot motion before
each walking step.
A 4-axis Cartesian scanner deploys
NDT sensors. Mass = 22 kg. End-effecter repeatability = 1 mm
NDT of rows of rivets using ultrasonic phase arrays, ultrasonic
wheel probes, eddy currents and thermography. For thermograhy,
the scanning arm is removed and replaced by a thermographic
camera and heat source. The design uses a hierarchy of universal
jonts in each foot, ankle and structure to provide the
flexibility to different surface curvatures but yet remain rigid
when attached to the surface.
The paper describing this design was highly commended by the
Industrial Robot Journal and CLAWAR 2006 conference.
Research and Development
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