Digital combined measuring technology assisted quality inspection for aircraft assembly

Aimed at the issues, including that detail features of the large size aircraft panel components couldn't be achieved directly and the low measuring efficiency by using a laser tracker separately in large size aircraft panel shape measurement, a combined measurement method based on the laser tracker and the articulated arm coordinate measuring machine (AACMM) was proposed. Under the premise of the measurement precision, by adding the AACMM to the measurement field of laser tracker, the detailed forming information of large size aircraft panel could be acquired comprehensively. According to the characteristics of the aircraft panel assembly process, some combined measurement tools were developed based on the Spatial Analyzer software, which could process all measurement data from the combined measurement system. Some examples are also given to illustrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the method.