Robots to soon help in airplane manufacturing

   Airbus is one of seven companies investing in VALERI, a European-Union-funded project to bring stationary robots into airplane production, working side-by-side with humans.
   According to the European Commission, which has invested 3.7 million euro ($4.94 million) in the project, Airbus will begin testing robots in a factory setting by 2015. Use of robots in aircraft manufacturing has been hindered, the release stated, because of how airplanes are constructed; stationary robots are widely used in car construction.
   “If we can solve the very complicated technical hurdles that prevent widespread uptake of robots in production, we can free-up people to work on the more value-added work,” said José Saenz, an engineer at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation. He is coordinating the project.
   “We have to make sure we have the necessary technology in place to make collaboration possible,” he said. “The results need to be as good, or better, than those achieved by humans.”