The Light Controlled Factory

This project will investigate and develop novel and interlinked measurement-enabled technologies for realising the next generation of factories for the "Assembly, Integration and Test" (AIT) of high value products. The vision is for the widespread adoption and interlinked deployment of novel, measurement-based techniques in factories, to provide machines and parts with aspects of temporal, spatial and dimensional self-awareness, enabling superior machine control and parts verification. The title "Light Controlled Factory" reflects the enabling role of optical metrology in future factories. The scientific and technological challenges that would need to be addressed via this research to realise this vision include:
(a) Future AIT factories require product specific customisation of assembly, ultimately adapting the condition of assembly for each part, whilst ensuring assembly integrity and high process yield. The research challenges are; (i) to develop methods using accurate high frequency measurement data to control the position and orientation of parts in real-time, and (ii) to integrate semi-finishing processes with assembly, such as machining, without adversely impacting the spatial fidelity of parts and machines.
(b) Within AIT factories, the effect of gravitational deflection and the impact of the environmental thermal gradient on large components and tooling structures can be significant and larger than the assembly tolerances. In such cases the dominant dimensional uncertainty source is often the effect of the environment on the parts and the structure of assembly equipment. Currently, industry has no robust mechanisms for identifying the impact of environmental uncertainty sources when seeking to demonstrate assembly conformance to design, with major consequences in terms of product verification.
(c) In order to integrate, control in real time and verify heterogeneous processes within an AIT factory it is essential to develop novel metrology networks that are scalable, affordable and can be used to create measurement-enabled production processes of superior process capability, and also to verify parts. The research challenges include; the real time fusion of measurement and uncertainty data from multiple systems, the mitigation of environmental effects through local and large volume measurement, and the definition of generic network design principles underpinned by algorithms for measurement uncertainty.
The project is important to the UK as the technologies deployed relate to the "systems modelling and integrated design/simulation" national competency and address the "flexible and responsive manufacturing" strategic theme according to TSB's document entitled 'A Landscape for the Future of High Value Manufacturing in the UK'. Strategically this proposal fits into the Manufacturing the Future theme of EPSRC. The review of the EPSRC portfolio reveals that this proposal is distinct from previous and current research.
The timeliness of the proposal is due to its building on the latest research of the three Universities, utilising current research from NPL into high-accuracy, flexible optical metrology and making use of state of the art vendor systems in large volume metrology. The combined effect of all these factors is that the underpinning knowledge, understanding and technologies required for this ambitious research are now in place, reducing research risk. Moreover, the project is timely in satisfying the industrial needs for better factory "ramp-up" flexibility and 100% product compliance with specifications at zero or minimum extra cost for high value products due to increasingly demanding customers and safety legislators. The Research Programme comprises five interrelated Research Topics (RTs) that will be carried out throughout the duration of the Grant. The RTs correspond to the research objectives and their work packages that include deliverables and milestones.

The following organisations and industry sectors will benefit from the research.
1. The co-creators and partners of this programme.
The future UK factories for Assembly Integration and Test (AIT) of the industrial partners and proposal co-creators, Astrium (telecommunication satellites) and Airbus (air structures and wing assembly) will benefit as the results of the project will allow them to:
(i) Improve their flexibility of bringing complex products to market on time. For instance, the duration of all build stages for the main satellite modules is around 12-14 months. Typical assembly tools used in these stages cost around £250k each and they are on the critical path for the satellite due to their long procurement lead times. With the measurement enabled AIT, Astrium should be able to remove the tooling from the critical path.
(ii) Enhance their factory "ramp-up" flexibility, achieving rapidly the rates of output dictated by the markets. For complex products, increasing the factory output rate is a complex and difficult task as it requires production and assembly times reduction which is difficult and time consuming to achieve without automating processes. For instance, the increase of the production rate of Airbus wings for the A320 family from 20 to more than 30 wing sets per month has been a major project for the Broughton factory. The methods developed by this proposal will allow the introduction of flexible and re-configurable automation of assembly processes and will increase yield, making ramp-up easier and cheaper to achieve.
(iii) Being able to produce with "right first time" capability. Industry requires 100% product compliance with specifications at zero or minimum extra cost for high value products due to increasingly demanding customers and safety legislators. Making metrology part of the production process will have a major impact in terms of achieving this requirement. This will have a major impact as only the cost of concessions is estimated at hundreds of millions of pounds per annum for the UK's high value sector.
2. Factory equipment design companies, metrology systems vendors and NPL.
Manufacturing systems design companies and vendors of systems (Aerotech, Renishaw, Phase Vision, GOM, Hexagon and Solartron) will benefit by gaining insights of new industrial techniques and applications. These companies will be developing the systems and technologies for the commercial application of the new methods. NPL will benefit by having a manufacturing context for the development of new metrology systems and best practice guides.
3. The UK's wider satellites, aerospace, defence, marine, renewables, civil nuclear and automotive sectors. The Tier 1 companies in the supply chains of these industry sectors will also benefit via the outreach activities of the project.
The project will seek to identify and document the generic aspects of the new technologies pioneered by the project together with the potential technical and commercial benefits. Its co-creators will be receiving regular and detailed reports of progress and technical capabilities demonstrated via the testing of methods, especially by the technology demonstrator. The project will outreach to sectors and companies not involved in the proposal via; (i) organising an annual "Factory Forum" focusing on industry, including SMEs, (ii) the dissemination of outputs via the external sections of the web portal and (iii) (iii) Expanding the user base by the engagement of selected companies, e.g., Rolls-Royce will formally join in year 2. LIMA at Bath has extensive experience and track record in technology development and business benefit codification in a
manner required by TRL stage reviews. The resources required for delivering the pathways to impact are included in the
Justification of Resources and the activities needed are included in the Work plan.