Aircraft canopy transparencies are left scratched, pitted, and damaged during service life. The damage interferes with the pilot's vision and weakens the canopy. Replacement of the canopy is expensive. A less-costly alternative is to rework the transparency by polishing with various abrasives to improve optical characteristics and to relieve stress in areas prone to cracking. This work is presently done manually at Hill Air Force Base (AFB), other Air Force and naval bases, and by private industry. The work is labor-intensive and sometimes not successful. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has developed the 'Robotic Canopy Polishing System' (RCPS) for Hill AFB for installation at Hill in the summer of 1988. The RCPS uses two robots for polishing invidual aircraft canopies simultaneously each robot sharing inspection services of a third robot for monitoring progress of the polishing. The inspections are performed using machine vision techniques. Restoration of the aircraft transparencies has shown to be a good use of robotic technology as the rework will be cost-effective the quality of rework is good and repeatable, and the best qualities of man and machine are combined to effectively perform the rework. This paper provides an overview of based RCPS concepts and describes potential related applications for this technology and recommendations for future work in this area.
The robotic canopy polishing system
Kabinendach-Roboterpoliersystem
Technical Paper. Society of Manufacturing Engineers ; Apr ; 1-13
1989
13 Seiten, 3 Bilder
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch