The total delivered system includes 110 axes of servo controlled motion and 16 DVT smart camera’s as part of this vision guided alignment system. DSC began the design of this vision alignment system in September 2001. Lockheed assembled the first aircraft on it in June 2002. The system consists of three “skates” at each of 4 stations. The skates support the three fuselage sections – the forward built in Marietta, the mid built in Fort Worth, and the aft built by Boeing in Seattle. The alignment requires very high precision in six degrees of freedom across 4 large surfaces on two separate bodies simultaneously. Measurement accuracy is 0.0002 inches with the vision system, and the moves are set to make 0.001 inch sets manually, but can make moves down to 0.0002 inches in automatic mode. This system significantly reduced the span time and personnel required to align and mate the fuselage and improved the quality of the mate over the original manual align & mate system that was built for the development phase. This program had numerous milestone objectives through the development and build phases , all of which were met on time and on budget by DSC. The system came on-line and built the first ship, one ship ahead of Lockheed’s need-date.

In 2002, DSC began work on the Mid-Fuselage align & mate system in Fort Worth, Texas. This system performs a similar function to the full-body mate system in Marietta, but the pieces are smaller and the assembly line is not mobile; it is in a fixed position. Space availability in critical locations prevented the same use of vision that we used on the main assembly line, so lasers are used to make position measurements. Lockheed Martin purchased this system in late 2002, and two systems were brought on-line, on schedule and on budget, in 2003. Lockheed reports that this system has reduced span time and labor costs and improved quality in excess of their most optimistic expectations.

DSC developed a high speed inspection system using a smart camera. The system includes a fully tested indexer/rejector unit along with setup software and user controls. This system allows the user to have all the advantages of a “custom” designed machine, while having all the advantages of a tested, proven, debugged, and well supported off-the-shelf (OTS) machine. This blending of a custom mechanical design and an OTS control system makes for a very powerful combination in both machine capability and costs.

This system passes light through a translucent base and then through a battery cap to inspect for contamination. There are 13 of these machines built and they are running in 4 versions – AAA, AA, C, and D cell sizes. Specks of contamination as small as 0.1 mm are identified and rejected at rates up to 360 parts per minute.

This machine inspects 5 different types of fuel injector caps. The operator selects which style cap will be running and the system automatically runs the software for all the tests that specific part number needs. The system is typically looking at the dimensional measurements and imperfections of the OD and ID (outside and inside diameters).