Increasing volume of production in aerospace is increasingly driving the adoption of more mainstream automation solutions. The product however, is not easy to automate, with large complex structures, very tight manufacturing tolerances and safety critical quality standards to adhere to.

This makes processes such as robot deployed drilling challenging as positional tolerances exceed the capability of a standard robot. This problem is exacerbated by the local positional variation of assemblies.

Assembly using robots presents a similar challenge as alignment is often adapted to conform to local part datum features in order to meet tolerance requirements as opposed to relying purely on fixture positions. Some processes have relied on an element of operator judgement and decision making to determine acceptable fit, a process hard to replicate with automation.