Implementing a system architecture model for automated aircraft cabin assembly processes

Abstract

AbstractAircraft manufacturers provide their customers with a number of options for aircraft customization, including a wide variety of pre-qualified optional equipment from which they can select different components according to their requirements. The numerous options cover a variety of engines, navigation systems, and interior cabin designs. This flexibility gives the possibility to the airlines to differentiate their brands. Moreover, a unique cabin interior design leaves an enduring impression on their customers and constitutes their expectations for the upcoming flight. On the other hand, many choices result in many different specifications, long delivery periods, complicated installation procedures such as stopping the running assembly of the cabin, disassembling already installed cabin components, and assembling new cabin models. Therefore, aircraft customization increases the cost and the lead time of the aircraft manufacturing processes and thus decreases the production rates. It is in the best interest of aircraft manufacturers and airlines to automate and optimize the customization processes to make them more time and cost efficient. This paper presents a method for establishing reconfigurable and optimized scheduling for aircraft cabin assembly. The data necessary for calculating the optimal schedule are retrieved from cabin system architecture that is built with semantic web language. The focus is on building a system architecture ontology model for automated scheduling of assembly processes of an aircraft cabin, which opens up the possibility for cabin customization at every assembly step. Moreover, the cabin ontology can be used as a foundation for co-design where each expert of their branch can further upgrade the model. With the algorithm presented in this paper, the ontology can be upgraded with new data, which will automatically correlate with the existing data in the cabin ontology. The knowledge-based ontology model provides a view of the whole chain from design to realization and feedback links to all included parties. Moreover, it gives the possibility for agile changes in the assembly sequence in response to the updated demands of the clients.