The work for the reported period has been mostly devoted for performing a close assessment of the measurement needs to reach the overall objectives and in devising the inspection strategy, the imaging sensor needed and in general the overall system architecture.
In particular it has addressed the requirements of the automated measurement system and the related test strategy needed to detect the panel defects that might arise because of an automated assembly of representative part of the internal aircraft linings. In order, this has required to analyze the standard procedures already in place while assembling a single isle civil aircraft, with the objective of identifying a set of guidelines useful for the automated assembly of ceiling panels, side walls panels, hatracks and cargo panels, that are considered in the VISTA project.
Following a classification already being used in Airbus, this list of requirements has been split between cabin and cargo area. Additionally, these requirements have been identified either as related to geometrical defects or to surface defects.
The requirements of the automated measurement system have then been used to compare different competing technologies for finding geometrical or surface defects. Suitable technologies that have been examined included laser profile scanners, structured light, time of flight, stereo and color cameras. This comparison identified a much smaller subset of suitable technologies. These early experiments have therefore enabled the selection of two specific sensors for the detection of geometric and surface defects, usable both in the cabin and cargo area.
The final developed solution was built around the design of an automated guided vehicle, able to navigate a structured environment with the objective of accomplishing acquisition missions tailored for specific environments and aircraft panels, using a sensor specialized for the identification of alignment-related defects and geometric defects and a sensor for color and texture related defects. The mobile robot can inspect cargo and cabin areas. Specific challenges related to these environments were addressed while designing an acquisition system that could reach highly place vantage points for the inspection of hatracks while moving in the cabin area, and at the same time being able to move inside the cargo area, where the ceiling is very low and the moving space is at a premium. In order to achieve this, a lightweight robot arm (Universal Robots UR10e) aided by a lift kit was chosen.
Acquisition strategies were tested in a simulated environment. A planner, able to identify the number of overlapped acquisitions needed to find surface and geometrical defects related to panels and the best acquisition point of view for each acquisition was developed. The planned solutions, tailored to panels in cargo and cabin environments were then tested in the real world, with a different computer node tasked for collecting acquired data, process and identify possible defects and store them. Additionally, VISTA implemented novel reporting tools that could be used by officers for working better, both on-site and off-site, using tools customized for augmented reality or virtual reality, while validating the identified defects.
Dissemination activities are ongoing, even with the organization of special sessions in metrology and aerospace related conferences, while partners companies are focusing on plans for exploiting results in industrial applications.
