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The rising demand for civil aircraft leads to the development of flexible and adaptive production systems in aviation industry. Due to economic efficiency, operational accuracy and high performance these manufacturing and assembly systems must be technologically robust and standardized. The current aircraft assembly and its jigs are characterized by a high complexity with poor changeability and low adaptability. In this context, the use of industrial robots and standardized jigs promise highly flexible and accurate complex assembly operations. This paper deals with the flexible and adaptable aircraft assembly based on industrial robots with special end-effectors for shaping operations. By the development and use of lightweight gripper system made of carbon fiber reinforced plastics the required scaling, robustness and stiffness of the whole assembly system can be realized.

Innovative, lightweight and cost-efficient aircraft components require the use of modern lightweight materials and efficient production technologies. A promising technology is the combination of chopped fiber Sheet Molding Compounds (SMC) and pre-impregnated, continuous fiber fabrics processed by single-stage compression molding. The so-called Hybrid SMC Technology obtains cost-efficiency as well as time-saving production of loaded and functional aircraft components. However, reliable design principles for components and computing methods for predicting the material behavior have to be developed for a use in aviation industry. Hence, this paper deals with the development of materials, fabrics, manufacturing processes and computing methods related to the Hybrid SMC Technology. Those developments are demonstrated and validated by the implementation of a lightweight multi-material overhead stowage compartment (OHSC) using new design approaches as well as assembly principles.