Canada's NRC: RIC-Americas Member of the Week

Operating from Montreal, the Structures, Materials and Manufacturing Laboratory of the National Research Council of Canada is helping Canadian aerospace companies develop and adopt cost-effective, flexible, reconfigurable approaches for aerospace structure assembly using robotics and automation. Projects are underway to develop low-cost reconfigurable robotized cells for aircraft component assembly and large-scale machining operations using ROS-I as a technology enabler. Virtual manufacturing also is being investigated. Through virtual manufacturing, robot work cell layout can be optimized; technical and financial impact evaluations of multiple automation scenarios can be shortened prior to making a big investment; and automatic trajectory generation/exportation of robot programs is made possible.

“We recognize the potential of ROS-I for advancing the state-of-the-art in industrial robot applications in aerospace manufacturing, and we want to contribute to defining the upcoming avenues of development.” - J. Michel Lambert, Research Officer

NRC, an early member of the ROS-Industrial Consortium, believes in the value of using innovative technology like ROS-I in applied robotics projects. As they were already using ROS-I in one of their projects, the Consortium allowed them to interact more closely with SwRI and combine their mutual expertise to support their developments and collaborate on new projects.