Application and Success Stories in Aerospace

In early 2009 BNH Machines, Inc was contacted by a large aerospace firm to solve a nearly impossible task. To design and build an automatic painting system for a commercial aircraft manufacturer with multiple production lines with an unbelievably short delivery and startup schedule. The production requirements made conventional robotic and automatic machine solutions untenable.

The task:

To coat over 4000 different styles of parts from 2"x2"  to 10' tall x 25' long, with 5 different coating materials...

The problems:

The same style part ( part number ) could be hung on the conveyor racks in any attitude...

     Upside down, mirror image, or hung on an angle in any of three dimensions.

The same style part ( part number ) could be dramatically different in shape.

     Part could be distorted due to manual part hanging procedures by more than 12"

     Part outline could be larger, or smaller, due to raw material sizes by more than 24"

Materials to be used in the coating process were new to some of the production lines targeted

     etc..

Prelude:

The plant engineers from Spirit Aerosystems were smart, experienced and cooperative, but the project start-up  timetable was on a critical path ( we were behind schedule before the project even started ). The quality of the coverage ( film build, no sags or runs) was monitored, checked and verified on every part to meet demanding aircraft quality standards. This project was going to be difficult to say the least. 

BNH proposed the only viable solution for this task. 

It was radical, new and untested. 

If we were to be successful, the robot programming would have to be done automatically, due to the large number of parts and the uncontrolled part presentation.  

In other words, the robotic motion programs and spray gun triggering, would have to be  self  taught  by the computers running the process....  

Robots just don't teach themselves how to paint !!!       Or can they???

Now it was time get to work and make this happen, fast:

New computer software to generate robot motion programs in real time 

   Multiple PLC systems running on multiple software platforms

   Operator interface for system control and monitoring

   (developed by BNH )

New networking solutions to network all computers and robot controllers in real time

  Ethernet IP

  RS 485 Serial interface

  Modbus interface

  Factory Computer Interface

  Data collection/reporting  for process

   (developed by BNH ) 

Equipment specifications and Production parts:

                                          Option #1                                                               Option #2

                    Multi Axis Robot, Multi Gun System                   Articulated Arm Robot, Single gun

Airplanes built for/by Boeing are now being painted by robots that teach themselves....

Science Fiction??? .....No, fact...

Web Changes

This is where we'll announce the most recent additions to our web site. If you've visited us before and want to know what's changed, take a look here first.

We've added some animation to the site...

Click on the picture with the spray gun and cell phone parts and watch the gun spray paint.

Open up the product literature pages for the BNH 3000, BNH 4000, BNH 6000 and see a simulation of how the machines/equipment would move in production.

View the BNH 4000 product literature page and you can see a sample electrical interconnection diagram. This will help our users understand the machine and the automatic system and how they are really one in the same.