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1. Introduction
Assembly technology has experienced development courses such as manual assembly, semi-mechanical/semi-automated assembly, mechanical/automation assembly and flexible assembly. Assembly technology continues to evolve to a higher level with the development of society needs, market competition and related technology. Recently digital assembly technology is widely used in aeronautics and astronautics field. Digital flexible assembly is an effective way to ensure the aircraft assembly accuracy and improve the assembly efficiency. The relevant institutions at home and abroad have done a lot of research work on the flexible assembly technology.
Zieve and Smith (1997) designed the E4000 wing riveting system. Hartmann et al. (2000) built the Airbus A340-600 wing panel manufacturing system for automated aircraft assembly. Hartmann et al. (2004) proposed determinate assembly for aircraft tooling and proved to be highly successful for tooling manufacture on large-scale system such as the A380 and A340-600 wing assembly projects. Smith et al. (2006) researched a simple, open, post and index system, which is used for final alignment and joining of the fuselage and wings of a new passenger business jet. In total, 19 manually actuated axes precisely move the wings, forward, and rear fuselage sections into position. Jayaweera and Webb (2007) developed an adaptive robotic assembly manufacturing cell for automated assembly of fuselage skin panels. Michalos et al. (2010) discussed the automotive assembly used in the vehicle assembly plants. Bloss (2011) suggested that automated assembly should continue to become more flexible and modular. Rosati et al. (2013) addressed the introduction of an innovative concept in flexible assembly: the fully flexible assembly system. Tadic et al. (2013) proposed a general model for locating and clamping workpieces of complex geometry with two skewed holes under multiple constraints. Advanced Integration Technology (AIT) (2008a, 2008b) company also developed automated assembly systems.
Of course, there are many papers on the assembly technology research. Zuheri (2013) studied details sources of operational and structural complexity in manual assembly systems. Bukchin et al. (2006) proposed a mixed-integer linear program to determine the layout of a facility with given dimensions and with given assembly line areas and shapes. Jahanzaib et al. (2013) researched the impact of process parameters on the performance of multi-station automated system by sensitivity analysis. Backhaus and Reinhart (2013) described an approach to alleviate...