Inspecting the outer shell of an aeroplane sounds so mind-numbingly boring that it absolutely must be one of those so-called “3D” – dirty, dull and dangerous – jobs that robots are supposed to save us from.
The absolute tedium of closely inspecting every square centimetre of the surface area of, for example, a typical Boeing 747 – which is about 22,000 square feet – would inevitably mean that some tiny imperfections can be missed by human eyes.
But could robots do the job any better? [Read more…] about Robotic inspection: Nasa testing new system for checking and fixing aircraft fuselages