A posture alignment-based methodology for gap optimization of aircraft composite panel assembly

The widespread use of composite materials in the aviation industry result in the control of the assembly gaps between components a key topic. In this work, a gap optimization method based on component posture alignment is presented to assist in the intelligent assembly of aircraft composite panels. To quantify the assembly gap, a static and posture-dependent dynamic model is developed with the idea of discretization, and then a mathematical evaluation method for the assembly quality is proposed based on two new concepts: gap distribution coefficient and gap distribution factor. Moreover, with a multi-objective optimization method, the assembly gap is minimized and the gap distribution is optimized under the constraints of DOF and assembly tolerances, which provides new ideas for intelligent assembly of big composite panels. Finally, the proposed method is studied by numerical simulations of an assembly work in point cloud, as well as hardware experiments of a composite panel assembly work. These studies, taken together, demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.