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Offline programming and hardware simulation has been undergoing rapid and dramatic changes as software technologies have provided advanced capabilities. The application of simulation to verify specific autofastening operations has become a timesaving capability to maintain production rates as well as avoid costly collisions and subsequent downtime. Through the use of simulation, engineers can develop additional insight into the autofastening process, including useful parameters that affect maintenance, cost, and cycle time reductions. The work documented here outlines several advances that have been made including the software simulation methods developed and implemented, and the resulting operational benefit achieved. Specific areas that are covered include operation tracking and reporting, predictive wear for tooling, fastener-specific operations, tool path optimization.

A new program is introduced that provides optimization capability for airline routes flown between two cities. The Mission Generator (MG) is a multipurpose program designed to accommodate a variety of problems involving multiple aircraft flights within the US airspace system. The goal of the program is to offer a conceptual-level set of results for a simulated network of operations of air transport vehicles. This network could represent a fleet of vehicles operated by a specific air carrier, or a collection of similar vehicles flown under different dispatch and routing conditions. The optimization capability gives the analyst a means to investigate the impact of free flight operations for a certain route, or an entire set of air carrier operations. The Mission Generator includes the effects of winds in the computation of the optimal trajectories, and offers methods to address special use airspace violations.

This paper chronicles the events of the ACSYNT software development project, the formation of the ACSYNT Institute, and the commercialization effort leading to a corporate entity, Phoenix Integration, Inc. Through the cooperation of government, industrial and academic concerns, a unique, focused research and development effort was organized for the development of software tools to aid in the conceptual design of aircraft. The goals of this jointly-sponsored effort were to provide a standard, consistent, generic environment in which aircraft conceptual modeling and analysis could take place. The ACSYNT Institute provided a climate that was conducive to common R&D goals, formation of non-proprietary solutions and joint research efforts between government and industry. The resulting R&D direction, associated technology, and energized market provided the right ingredients for a commercialization effort.