Robots to assist in building Airbus planes

Robots funded by a European Commission project are to help construct Airbus aircraft.

Seven partners, including Airbus, from Spain, Germany and Austria are building a working laboratory prototype and will test it in a factory setting before 2015. Through this, the EU-funded VALERI project hopes to place a higher value on human knowhow.

Until now, the manner in which planes are built and put together has meant that shifts of workers carry out assembly and inspection. But researchers are currently working on ‘mobile manipulators’ that will be able to access small spaces and work on similar tasks in multiple locations. The robots will need the ability to work with high precision, but they will need to do so while moving around humans. In the manufacturing sector at present, robots have been separated from the people working on the shop floor. Once a task is complete, robots will pass over what they have done with a camera to inspect their results, verifying that everything has been carried out to the necessary standard.

Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission with responsibility for the Digital Agenda, says: “We are joining forces with top industrial companies and research institutions to develop more efficient and sustainable production. New technologies are not only making Europe more competitive on the global stage, they also enable people to develop new skills for better jobs”.

The project is getting direct input from the factory floors of Airbus and Austrian FACC (two of the partners in the project) as people say what tasks they would like their robot co-workers to handle. The concept is still in the laboratory phase, but it’s hoped that the technology will be phased in gradually. The European Commission invested €3.7m in the VALERI project under the Factories of the Future contractual public private partnership.