Panel Step/Gap Mismatch Measurement

Systems and Materials Research Corporation (SMRC) proposes the development of ChekMate™, a battery-operated, hand-held, automated inspection system for measuring door/land mismatch on stealth aircraft. Based on SMRC’s patented microwave NDE (MNDE) technology, and on its alpha prototype microwave and laser-based gap/step system, ChekMate will obviate the need for the expensive and time-consuming iterative (assemble-inspect-disassemble-coat-reassemble-reinspect) procedure that is the current F-35 manufacturing baseline. MNDE is extremely effective in penetrating LO coatings, including boots, to profile substrate features. SMRC’s Alpha prototype, now in test at Lockheed Martin, employs a microwave transceiver to gauge distance to the coated/booted substrate, a laser displacement device to measure distance to the outer mold line (OML), and linear optical encoder to correlate microwave/laser measurements to seam position. With pre-knowledge of seam type, target recognition algorithms select appropriate peak/null features and compute gap and step. While SMRC’s alpha prototype gap/step system has performed well in some seam conditions, it has proven less accurate and repeatable in others (narrow gap/high step). Phase I focuses on sensor innovations and selected Alpha lessons-learned accuracy improvements. Project goals: Improve accuracy/repeatability under all seam conditions to accuracies better than 5 mils in gap and 3 mils step over the entire F-35 range.