A novel approach for the autonomous inspection and repair of aircraft composite structures

• The paper presents the results obtained in the first two years of the H2020 CompInnova project which deals with the development of an innovative approach for inspection and repair of damage in aeronautical composites. The development of a newly designed robotic platform for autonomous inspection using combined infrared thermography (IRT) and phased array (PA) non-destructive investigation for damage detection and characterization, while integrated with laser repair capabilities. PA and IRT are combined in order to detect near-surface and sub-surface damages. Development of a novel thermographic technique termed Pulsed Phase-informed Lock-In Thermography, enables for the first time the rapid and quantitative assessment of damage in the materials. Furthermore, the results are fused using machine learning and image processing techniques for detection and sizing in real time. This will provide the information needed for an automatic laser repair procedure capable of removing precisely ply-by-ply the material. This method allows to have a well-treated surface to apply a repair patch. The three different modules (PA, IRT and laser repair) are integrated on an autonomous robotic platform. The robot is going to be able to attach and move on surfaces of different orientations via the use of a vortex-based actuation system, thus providing the ability to autonomously access, scan and repair the different sections of an aircraft fuselage. © CCM 2020 - 18th European Conference on Composite Materials. All rights reserved.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Reglerteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Control Engineering (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Robotteknik och automation (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Robotics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

phased-array

infrared thermography

autonomousinspections

vortex robot

composites NDT

Reglerteknik

Control Engineering

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)