As the drives and controls system partner to MTorres on Boeing’s 777X wing bond cell, AMS delivered 100% of the drives and control systems tasked with managing 300 axes of motion across a production cell roughly the size of a football field. These systems orchestrated the production of either a left or right wing, across multiple configurations, with repeatable, accurate results every time. This is the kind of challenge we find exhilarating.

MTorres and Pacifica Engineering needed a controls and safety architecture for the wing bond cell on Boeing’s 777X program. The challenge: design and manufacture a system that coordinates interpolated motion across multiple positioners, lay-up heads, and supporting structures, all moving as a single, safety-rated system. A fault anywhere in that architecture had to trigger a coordinated stop while maintaining path integrity, product quality, and accuracy. At the same time, the safety system couldn’t impede a process built around wing-panel tolerances measured in thousandths of an inch.

AMS designed and delivered the motion control and machine safety architecture behind this system. This is the kind of project that defines what aerospace automation needs from an automation integrator. A control system architecture disciplined enough to manage hundreds of machine elements, and keep everyone standing near them safe while maintaining production throughput. This same discipline is also what earned AMS a Boeing Gold Performance Excellence Award for automating a wing – body join process on the 737 program.

Aerospace Automation Is a Distinct Discipline

Aerospace manufacturing operates on a different set of standards than most industrial automation sectors. Tolerances are tighter. Aerospace programs often share tooling across multiple aircraft programs and configurations, with the same fixture supporting multiple platforms, build specs, and customer requirements. And every axis of motion near a wing, fuselage, or fastener installation is also a safety challenge. A controls failure on a wing-fuselage join fixture or a riveting cell not only creates downtime, it also creates risk to the structure and the people producing it.

This equipment also tends to outlast the systems that control it. Machines built for one aircraft generation are expected to adapt and keep running through the next. As a result, aerospace automation work is often about retrofitting proven mechanical platforms.  AMS has done this work across a variety of aerospace manufacturing cells, such as a legacy Gemcor riveters, rudder and elevator actuator test stands, and a variety of inspection and metrology production cells. We add modern drives, safety systems, and controls, often improving system safety and performance along the way. We are comfortable understanding the original design intent of legacy equipment and optimizing the control system design to maximize performance, and when needed, we are also adept at designing new equipment to meet evolving needs.

What AMS Works On

The core of our aerospace work is motion control and safety system architecture. Often, the mechanical design comes from someone else, an OEM, a tooling integrator, or a legacy machine already on the floor. Our job is to make that equipment move correctly and efficiently, operate safely, and hold up across a program-length service life that often encompasses multiple configurations.

Large-Scale Assembly Cell Motion Control

Large multi-axis assembly and bonding cells sit at the center of our aerospace work. On the 777X program, AMS partnered with MTorres and Pacifica Engineering to design and deliver the motion control and machine safety architecture for a wing bond cell. That cell was built around 300 coordinated axes, in a production space the size of a football field. We’ve also supplied automation and motion control for wing-fuselage join fixtures used in final assembly. Systems like these need a controls architecture that scales in axis count without losing the safety and coordination discipline that made the original design work at 10 axes.

Legacy Machine Retrofits

Legacy retrofits are a common entry point in the aerospace industry, and the reason is specific to this industry. Aerospace tooling isn’t retired because it’s obsolete; rather, it’s retired because the aircraft program it supports is retired. And that can happen decades after the equipment was built. AMS supplied all-new controls for the fleet of Gemcor riveters used in 767 wing assembly. Specifically, we replaced legacy control systems on mechanical platforms that had already proven themselves in production.

Test Stand and Qualification System Design

Test stand and qualification work are a distinct line from assembly automation. For example, we’ve built Flap Jack Transmission test stands for the 737 program and specialty motion platforms that test military communications equipment under realistic dynamic and vibration conditions. These systems reproduce specific loading, motion, and environmental conditions on demand. That’s a different design problem than keeping a production line running at rate and one that AMS excels at.

Machine Safety and Guarding

Machine safety and guarding get the same rigor in aerospace that they do everywhere else we work. What changes is the axis count. In practice, guarding controls access. Functional safety controls what the machine is allowed to do once someone is inside that guarding. On a system with hundreds of coordinated axes moving near wing structure and personnel, functional safety belongs in the core system design from the first drawing.

Aerospace Supply Chain Manufacturing Equipment

We also build the equipment aerospace suppliers use to produce what goes into an aircraft, outside of final assembly altogether. That includes manufacturing systems that produce aerospace fasteners and assembly equipment for cabin components, such as seatback USB port assemblies and passenger overhead lamp and vent assemblies. It also includes specialty process equipment, like induction hardening automation for gears and explosion-proof robotic painting systems for hazardous-location applications.

Platform Expertise

AMS is a Certified Siemens Solution Partner and a Rockwell Systems Integrator, and we deploy both platforms where each one fits the job. Specifically, the 777X bond cell ran on the Siemens Simatic platform with S120 drives, Kuka robots, and Keyence safety scanners. The Gemcor retrofit combined Rockwell PLC technology with Delta Tau motion control. Similarly, our test stand work runs primarily on the Siemens Simotion platform with Simatic drives. For painting systems, we’ve paired Fanuc robotics with Siemens controls.

How We Work

Mechanical Engineering First

We start with the mechanical system and production intent before we touch the controls. On a multi-axis assembly cell, or a retrofit of a machine we didn’t design, the coordination, safety, and motion architecture only work if we understand the mechanical and production relationships first. In practice, that means knowing how the axes manage equipment loading and movement, where the safety envelope optimally is placed, and what the existing structure can and can’t support.

No Proprietary Retrofit Package

We don’t have a proprietary retrofit package. That’s what lets us re-control a decades-old Gemcor riveter and design a new 300-axis bond cell architecture using the same engineering discipline. Instead of forcing every project into one product, we evaluate what best looks like from a technology, existing familiarity, and cost constraint perspective. It also means we can work inside another company’s mechanical design and achieve their program requirements, or deliver a complete standalone system when that’s what the program needs.

In-House Engineering and Fabrication

Control system design, panel fabrication, programming, and factory acceptance test all happen under one roof at our Vancouver, WA facility. On aerospace programs, that matters for a specific reason: documentation, traceability, and program-specific requirements remain with the core deliverable.  We have 35,000 square feet of high bay manufacturing space with 30 ton overhead crane capacity to manage the majority of builds in-house.

Engineered and Built for the Operator

We design for the operators and maintenance teams who live with the system long after commissioning is complete. On programs with a service life measured in decades, that means building for the technician who’s troubleshooting the panel long after the original engineering team has moved on.