Robots as a Service for Structural Aircraft Repair

The USAF spends $12 billion annually on depot-level maintenance, over $1 billion which is aircraft skin defastening. Defastening is conducted to replace cracked skin components and to allow inspection of interior structural components. Skin panel replacement occurs daily across all aircraft types of the various DoD branches and will become more common as the fleet ages. Wilder Systems has developed a mobile Agile Manufacturing Robot (AMR) for aircraft manufacturing that will be adapted to solve this problem. The main technical objective is to refine the AMR design to meet Air Force T.O. specifications for aircraft defastening and develop a working solution. Design tasks include optimizing the system for the target aircraft structure; development of an automated component reverse engineering and robot path planning procedure; and identification of system enhancements necessary for operation. End users will validate the design at Critical Design Review which will allow Wilder Systems to fabricate, integrate, and test. The proposed advancements to the AMR will enable the Air Force to fly more sorties with their existing fleet, reduce maintenance costs and improve maintainer ergonomics. The total savings across all aircraft will be transformational for the Air Force in terms of cost, manpower, and asset utilization.