Aerospace Manufacturing Automation

The airframe designer specifies fastening information during the engineering of airframe assemblies. Those fastening information are crucial for the process definition, and finally for the programming of control code for corresponding automated fastening systems. The automated drill riveters need to select the right fasteners according to the engineering information managed in the CAD-Model. A seamless transfer of relevant engineering information from the CAD-Model to FASTSUITE allows automated grouping and sequencing of fastening positions. Using the fastener properties from the CAD-Model reduces the time for program creation, and for selecting the correct operation cycles. This avoids the error prone process of manually transfer of engineering data via drawings.

The engineering process of an automation system can be roughly divided into the four phases: sales, concept, detailing and commissioning and involves multiple disciplines and associated tools like MCAD, ECAD, Factory Simulation as well control- and safety engineering.

The digital twin - allows, the verification and error identification at an early stage which would be much more expensive to solve in later development steps (rule of ten). This can be either performed via Software-in-the-Loop or Hardware in the Loop.

The digital twin in FASTSUITE is an exact representation of the real mechatronic structures in terms of shape, kinematics, but also signal communication and sensors. All activities in the automation system are thus controlled by signals, just like in the real plant, and do not have to be simulated by scripts. In order to create a digital twin as a digital representation of the production system, effective functions are needed to create it with a reasonable effort. Here, FASTSUITE offers all the prerequisites for representing even complex automation systems with the signal interconnection between motion and logic control and associated actuators and sensors. For that FASTSUITE is providing a tidy context-sensitive user interface and ready-made components from a library. The digital twin of the production system can successively scale throughout the entire development process. From a simple kinematic model to a complex mechatronic model the digital twin represented by virtual automation components (actuators, sensors, signal inputs/outputs and associated behavior models).

With a digital twin the development process can be rationalized and error rates reduced, saving time and costs.