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Regular and periodic non-destructive testing (NDT) is mandatory for civil airlines throughout the world. Most inspection is currently carried out manually, such that operator fatigue can lead to mistakes. Increasingly, airlines require a hard copy of inspection results to eliminate operator subjectivity. Furthermore, the requirement for 100 % inspection of vital structural features is becoming more commonplace and the slow rate of manual inspection is therefore prohibitively expensive. The cost of NDT is increased further where X-ray inspection is used, since components to be inspected must be removed from the aircraft.
As well as using conventional NDT sensors, the Robair project involved the development of the following technologies: acoustic camera, phased arrays, thermography, dry contact ultrasound and eddy currents. It was anticipated that the prototype system developed to be commercialised soon after project completion.
The objective of this programme was to develop a robotic inspection system, which would walk over large areas of an aircraft structure, carrying out automatic data collection and interpretation to identify all structural faws, without the need to dismantle components.
The output of the project was a robot designed to climb over the fuselage and wing areas of aircraft and inspect rows of rivets for loose rivets and cracks.
The vacuum adhesion climbing robot provides motion on aircraft wings and fuselage (mass = 20 kg). On-board control systems with tele-operation from an operator PC via a twisted pair. Flexible feet adjust to a range of surface curvatures. Vacuum sensors check for adequate adhesion before allowing robot motion before each walking step.
A 4-axis Cartesian scanner deploys NDT sensors (mass = 22 kg, end-effecter repeatability = 1 mm).
NDT of rows of rivets using ultrasonic phase arrays, ultrasonic wheel probes, eddy currents and thermography. For thermograhy, the scanning arm is removed and replaced by a thermographic camera and heat source. The design uses a hierarchy of universal joints in each foot, ankle and structure to provide the flexibility to different surface curvatures but yet remain rigid when attached to the surface.
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