A framework of measurement assisted assembly for wing-fuselage alignment based on key measurement characteristics

Wide employments of large scale digital metrologies have promoted the development of digital aircraft assembly technologies, which are changing traditional processes of wing-fuselage alignment to high precision and more efficient digital alignment based on measurement assisted assembly (MAA). MAA is a systematic technique and relies on the integration of digital measurement with assembly process, which is not only the integration of operations, but also data fusion and propagation from product design, through digital inspection to components assembly. In order to direct and support the applications of advanced approaches in MAA for wing-fuselage alignment, a novel framework of measurement assisted assembly methodology is proposed to realise the process integration and data fusion based on key measurement characteristics (KMCs). Firstly, definition, classification and mathematical model of KMCs are presented; then, the framework is constructed on the basis of integrated process model, measurement data model and data process kernel. Finally, a case of wing-fuselage alignment simulation is carried out to illuminate the application of measurement assisted assembly technique with the framework. [Received 28 April 2013; Revised 25 February 2014; Accepted 26 April 2014]