A Digital Thread for Aircraft Cabins: How DLR’s DiCADeMA Project Is Automating Manufacturing
The DiCADeMA project (Digital Cabin Architectures and Design for Manufacturing), led by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), has developed a digitally networked process for aircraft cabin manufacturing. The system uses an Ensenso N36 3D camera from IDS Imaging Development Systems GmbH to detect and align drilling positions with high precision.
The Process: From Design to Production, Automatically
The goal is to establish a continuous digital thread from design to production. Changes in cabin design are recorded in digital data and transferred to production planning automatically.
- An autonomous mobile robot (AMR) approaches an aircraft frame mock-up and positions itself.
- A lightweight robot on the AMR moves a marking unit—equipped with the 3D camera—into position.
- The Ensenso N36 camera captures a 3D point cloud of the environment and matches it against CAD data to detect deviations.
- Correction values are calculated and transmitted via OPC UA interface to a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) , which controls the robot to mark drilling positions.
- An operator follows and drills at the marked spots. This process is repeated for each installation point.
Key Technical Details
The robot achieves a positioning accuracy of about 5 mm.
Hand-eye calibration and an iterative minimization process enable comparison of point clouds to reference CAD data, resulting in a transformation matrix for correction. The camera has a short working distance to maintain accuracy and minimize robot movements.
Benefits: Precision, Traceability, and Reduced Labor
- Increased precision and repeatability.
- Continuous data acquisition for documentation and traceability.
- Reduced manual measurement and readjustment, lowering production times.
- Assembly personnel are relieved from position determination tasks.
Outlook
Further project steps will examine system accuracy and evaluation algorithm performance, including optimization of mathematical methods for aligning nominal and actual point clouds. The system may also be applied in other industries.