A novel posture alignment system for aircraft wing assembly

A novel 6-degree of freedom （DOF） posture alignment system, based on 3-DOF positioners, is presented for the assembly of aircraft wings. Each positioner is connected with the wing through a rotational and adsorptive half-ball shaped end-effector, and the positioners together with the wing are considered as a 3-PPPS （P denotes a prismatic joint and S denotes a spherical joint） redundantly actuated parallel mechanism. The kinematic model of this system is established and a trajectory planning method is introduced. A complete analysis of inverse dynamics is carried out with the Newton-Euler algorithm, which is used to find the desired actuating torque in the design and path planning phase. Simulation analysis of the displacement and actuating torque of each joint of the positioners based on inverse kinematics and dynamics is conducted, and the results show that the system is feasible for the posture alignment of aircraft wings.