Development of Mechatronic Assembly Equipment for Assembling Internal Structural Components of Large Commercial Aircraft Using Laser Positioning System Instead of Jigs & Tools
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) is facing price competition for large commercial aircraft fuselage panels, which are the main products of its aircraft business, between OEM customers Boeing and Airbus, in addition to a severe business environment due to price competition with Tier 1 manufacturing competitors. Against this background, we need to build a manufacturing and production system that can quickly follow production fluctuations and cost reductions. As a means to solve this issue, we reviewed the production method that relies on many large stationary jigs and tools operated mainly by skilled workers and worked on the development of automatic assembly equipment using industrial robots that have production flexibility and enable labor saving. This report introduces the newly developed robotized assembly equipment for fuselage panel internal skeleton subassemblies.
