Aerobotix will conduct the first public demonstrations of its collaborative robot for the aerospace and defence sectors at the Westec AeroDef Manufacturing Conference in November.

The mobile robot has been specifically designed for applications including sanding, painting and inspection. The demonstration robot will perform automated tasks on aerospace components.

“As Aerobotix continues its groundbreaking work in mobile robots, we’re excited to bring this new technology to Westec AeroDef,” said Josh Tuttle, Aerobotix business development manager. “Mobile robots are widely used in general manufacturing and warehousing but are still new to the aerospace and defence industries. They support the ‘factory of the future’ concept and offer significant benefits in terms of labour and cost savings, output quality and worker safety.”

Aerobotix has been a pioneer in the use of mobile robots for aerospace and defence applications, partnering with Compass Technology Group (CTG) to help build the first collaborative mobile robot for US Air Force maintenance depots.

The self-navigating Adaptive Radome Diagnostic System (ARDS) uses microwave signals to evaluate aircraft radomes and identify defects such as delamination or water ingress.

“The new mobile robot we’re demonstrating isn’t self-navigating like the ARDS but could be reconfigured to become self-navigating if the customer has that need,” explained Tuttle. “A key strength of mobile robots is that they’re highly configurable and can be rapidly repurposed to serve multiple objectives in multiple locations.”

Image: Stock image for illustrative purposes

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