Together with GKN Aerospace Deutschland GmbH, TUM – Chair of Carbon Composites, SGL Technologies GmbH, Augsburg University of Applied Sciences, and under the co-founding authority of Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy, we started another pioneering R&D project: The full automation of sandwich structure production.
As of today, sandwich structures, known as an excellent means in building lighter and greener aircrafts, still depend on manual material lay-up and subsequent inspection steps. We plan to further enhance the Fiber Patch Placement process by e.g. enhanced on-line inspection steps and self-adaptive process control, advanced placement routines, and automated core handling. The project team aims to improve net lay-up speed of relevant components by factor 7-10x.