Aerial Robot Coworkers for Autonomous Localization of Missing Tools in Manufacturing Plants

Abstract

This paper presents an aerial robot capable of collaborating with humans for detecting, identifying and locating missing tools in manufacturing and assembly industrial plants. The proposed system has been installed and extensively validated in the Airbus A320 Neo fan-cowl factory in Centro Bahía de Cádiz (CBC) at Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz, Spain). The validation experiments took between December 2017 to February 2018 and the system was partially operated by the AIRBUS DS workers while factory was in full production. To the best of our knowledge this is the very first aerial robotic system cooperating with humans in manufacturing that has been validated in factory production conditions. The paper briefly presents the system, argues on its advantages over traditional approaches and presents experimental results.