The project began by developing safe, automated means of delivering tooling supplies internally within the Airbus factory at Broughton; one that could be quickly expanded moving forward.
Amer Liaqat, technology manager for assembly innovation and development at Airbus UK, says: “This project has been Airbus’ first trial of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) on the shop floor. We have made a number of enhancements to the standard off-the-shelf technology to make it safe and suitable for our factory environment, and are now setting the benchmark for its roll-out to other Airbus sites worldwide.”
The project was initiated to fulfil Airbus’ vision of automating component handling, which involves a significant amount of manual work due to the sheer size of the components and precision required during aircraft assembly. Automating this process will eliminate non-value added operations and bring significant benefits to Airbus in terms of capacity and rate ramp-up.
“Doing small scale trials with this AMR has given us a good idea of the challenges involved in adapting the technology and the requirements for future development work,” says Liaqat.
AMRC senior project engineer Dr Lloyd Tinkler says: “Supervised trials of the robots have already taken place, from which we saw that utilising them could save the whole time equivalent of one operator per shift in the current use case at Airbus, releasing operators to work on highly-skilled tasks and ultimately improving shop-floor productivity. This outcome has led to Airbus exploring opportunities where such robots could be used to optimise processes, including specially adapted versions to pull tooling/component trolleys already in use at the Airbus site.”
Liaqat adds: “We can see the potential to go even further and work with the AMRC to develop AMRs for precision assembly tasks such as component positioning and certification. Developing it further, we could see this technology being utilised to transport an entire aircraft wing between factories on site at Broughton.”
The robots have been developed by the AMRC based on the MiR200 robot from Danish company, Mobile Industrial Robots ApS. MiR200 robots have a payload of 200 kg and a top speed of 4 km/h, and the engineers have been adapting them to safely transport small items such as tool storage racks. In-built laser scanners map the environment for the robots, so they can navigate their surroundings unaided by human intervention. Flashing lamps and beacons indicate current status and intended direction to those in the vicinity.
Beyond this initial deployment, the AMRC and Airbus are drawing on simulation models of MiR200 robots developed by the University of Sheffield. The intention is to provide an assessment of how these robots will interact with the shop-floor environment.
Professor Ash Tiwari, Airbus/RAEng research chair in digitisation for manufacturing at the University of Sheffield, says: “Our simulation models have led to the identification of problem scenarios that informed physical testing and modifications on MiR200 robots at AMRC's Factory 2050.”
University of Sheffield researchers are also working with AMRC to establish a business case for future deployments of AMRs across the Airbus shop floor. To support this initiative, AMRC has been making further adjustments to the AMRs, including the addition of cameras to monitor the number of tools delivered per shift, as well as industrial laser scanners mounted vertically that will detect overhanging obstacles and enclose the robot in a protective field that alerts operators to any errors (disabling the robots safely if there are any problems).
Tinkler says: “These further developments will enable us to complete a trial of the AMRs unsupervised by humans at Airbus Broughton, the aim of which is to validate the estimated time savings, the number of movements and how many tools the robots are delivering between the engineers per shift.”
Liaqat adds: “This project has also provided the opportunity to work with the AMRC to conduct a feasibility study on product inspection and tooling certification through mobile photogrammetry. The advantage of having a mobile platform instead of a fixed station is the flexibility that would allow us to improve factory flow, eliminating bottlenecks as the system could measure on location.”
Tiwari says the project is an excellent example of a three-way collaboration involving Airbus UK, AMRC's Factory 2050 and researchers at the University of Sheffield: “The project team is now collaborating to develop and publish a highway code as an industrial standard for communication and interaction between autonomous systems and surrounding machines, objects and humans. This could be used by a range of companies exploring the potential benefits and regulatory compliance of AMRs on their shop floors.”
