Daxi Geng

Automated precision drilling is essential for aircraft skin manufacturing, yet current robotic systems face dual challenges: chatter-induced inaccuracies in hole quality and limited access to confined spaces such as air inlets. To overcome these limitations, this paper develops a compact drilling robot for drilling large-curvature skins of aircraft air inlets. Targeting the precision drilling requirements for complex-curvature aircraft air inlets, we present the robot’s overall design scheme, detailing each module’s composition to ensure precision drilling. In-depth analysis of the robot’s large-curvature adaptability precisely calculates the wheel assembly dimensions. To ensure high-precision drilling bit entry into guide mechanisms, a flexible drilling spindle mechanism is designed, with calculated and verified elastic ranges. An integrated intelligent control system is developed, combining vision recognition, real-time pose adjustment, and automated drilling workflow planning. Finally, traversability and drilling capabilities are validated using a simplified air inlet model. Test results confirm successful traversal on R200 mm curvature skins and automated drilling of Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP)/7075 aluminum stacks with a diameter of Φ4–Φ6 mm, achieving dimensional errors of less than 0.05 mm and normal direction errors of less than 0.65°.

Ti6Al4V alloy is critical for thin-walled aerospace components, yet conventional methods for its surface enhancement struggle to balance efficiency and pre

Ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting (UEVC) with clockwise elliptical vibration has made notable achievements in precision machining; however, its criti

The thin and straight horn of the ultrasonic transducer is located in the center of the thick transducer, so that the tool tip of the ultrasonic vibration turning tool holder cannot be located on the outermost side of the entire tool holder, which leads to the structural interference between the tool holder and the part during turning. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a longitudinal-bending elliptical vibration ultrasonic transducer with a bending horn for ultrasonic vibration-assisted cutting (UVAC). The designed transducer can be used for the partial separation continuous high-speed elliptic ultrasonic vibration cutting (HEUVC) of external surface and internal cavity. The ultrasonic vibration amplitude of the transducer can meet the needs of HEUVC. When using an ultrasonic transducer with a bending horn for HEUVC, compared with conventional cutting (CC), HEUVC can improve the tool life by about 50%.

The thin and straight horn of the ultrasonic transducer is located in the center of the thick transducer, so that the tool tip of the ultrasonic vibration turning tool holder cannot be located on the outermost side of the entire tool holder, which leads to the structural interference between the tool holder and the part during turning. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a longitudinal-bending elliptical vibration ultrasonic transducer with bending horn for ultrasonic vibration-assisted cutting (UVAC). A-type transducer can be used for UVAC of external surface, and B-type transducer can be used for UVAC of internal cavity. The maximum peak-peak amplitudes of longitudinal vibration and bending vibration for A-type transducer are 14μm and 16μm, respectively. The maximum peak-peak amplitudes of longitudinal vibration and bending vibration for B-type transducer are 17μm and 21μm, respectively. Such a large amplitude can fully meet the needs of UVAC. When using ultrasonic transducer with bending horn for partial separation continuous high-speed elliptic ultrasonic vibration cutting (HEUVC), compared with conventional cutting (CC), HEUVC can improve the tool life by 65.74% for A-type transducer, HEUVC can improve the tool life by 44.62% for B-type transducer.

In this study, to address the low efficiency for conventional ultrasonic-assisted drilling (UAD) of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic and titanium alloy (CFR