The Boeing Company

Other

Harry Asada

Branko Sarh

Manas Chandran Menon

Brian Alexander Selden

Kyu-Jin Cho

A method for assembling parts. A sealant is placed between a plurality of parts in a stack up to form a workpiece. The workpiece is clamped using a permanent magnet unit and an electromagnetic clamping device in an activated state such that a number of forces caused by a magnetic field clamps the workpiece between the electromagnetic clamping device and the permanent magnet unit. A number of holes are drilled in the workpiece. A number of fasteners are installed in the number of holes.

Electromagnetic clamping method

An electromagnetic clamping system contains a housing, numerous permanent magnets, numerous low friction surfaces having a number of wheels, an end effector, an electromagnetic clamping device, first, second, and third coil systems, and a core. The end effector performs operations on a workpiece. The electromagnetic clamping device has an activated state and a deactivated state. The electromagnetic clamping device further includes a first coil system generating a first magnetic field causing normal forces on the permanent magnet unit and the clamping device; a second coil system generating a second magnetic field causing side forces on the permanent magnet unit; and a third coil system generating a third magnetic field causing a rotational force on the permanent magnet unit. The core provides access to the workpiece surface for performing operations thereon; and concentrates forces from a number of magnetic fields on the core surface contacting the workpiece surface.

Electromagnetic clamping device

An apparatus may comprise a permanent magnet unit, an end effector, and an electromagnetic clamping device. The end effector may be capable of performing workpiece operations. The electromagnetic clamping device may have an activated state and a deactivated state.

An instrumented fastener (e.g., a 'tack' fastener) includes one or more light sources (e.g., light-emitting diodes) configured to produce a light beacon that includes encoded information regarding the instrumented fastener (e.g., part number), wherein the direction of the light beacon can be used to align external and/or internal assembly systems to the instrumented fasteners. The light beacon may be activated automatically, or via an instruction received from an external system. Once aligned, the assembly system may, for example, proceed with installing permanent fasteners between neighboring tack fasteners.

Methods and apparatus for an instrumented fastener

An architecture shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators is presented called Segmented Binary Control (SBC). Instead of controlling the phase transition of the entire SMA wire as a single plant, we divide the SMA wire into many segments, each of which is controlled separately as an ON-OFF finite-state process. SBC produces a displacement as the addition of small displacements generated by the individual segments. Furthermore, the segmented architecture of SMA wires is extended to a multi-axis actuator array by arranging them in a two-dimensional array, so that the multi-axis control may be streamlined and coordinated. Moreover, the 2-D segmentation can be so designed that coordinated gross motion as well as independent fine movements may be generated with minimum complexity and minimum control loops.

Growing community of inventors

Lincoln, MA, United States of America

Harry Asada