Northrop Grumman Space Systems proposed the creation of a robotic drilling arm, with the primary objective of this project being to design an arm with a drill tool capable of locating positions on any cylinder to aid in drilling. Given that Northrop Grumman has launch vehicles that are used within a variety of different areas, including designing launch vehicles, and these cylinders that we will drill into to connect the entire vehicles together. These launch vehicles include cylindrical composite materials to bolt secondary structures which is what is used to connect entire launch vehicles together. The team’s drill, as stated previously, will need to locate positions on any cylinder to assist with drilling and apply enough force to drill through a composite material. Given that not every cylinder is the same diameter and material, it is expected that we accommodate for different bolt clearances and the force that is applied to drill through the material is enough for at least what is expected to be used within the competition. The team only knows small yet extremely important details regarding size constraints, money constraints, and what the arm drill expected to complete during Northrop Grumman Design Day.
Through meeting with assigned clients, we discovered information that will greatly impact the success of this project including customer requirements and constraints, along with that the team dove into various concepts that were slightly vague within the proposal given. Items such as what material is expected to be drilled through, size expectation of the design, whether it needed to be autonomous; the answers received, respectively are aluminum, four feet tall and 50-inch diameter, and that being autonomous was a requirement.
The budget for this project has a small amount of room for change as the design progresses, allotted a first amount of $5,000.00 pending upcoming design decisions potentially having an additional $5,000.00 if the design requires more than the initial amount. Given what is being asked of the team it is anticipated that more than the initial five thousand dollars will be used, so the team has planned on a fundraising target of $1,000.00 which is ten percent of the total $10,000.00 as required by David Willy. As of now the team’s budget manager is reaching out to various companies in hopes of getting donated materials and/or money donations. Along with those details as a team we decided to do a small self-donation leading up to the first prototype of $50.00 each totaling $300.00 as a first step toward the requirements of ten percent team-fundraising.
This project is important because Northrop Grumman Space Systems is always looking for what is more efficient in regard to speed and efficiency in designing. By creating this robotic arm, the overall design cycle will improve and add adds to the internal availability within their company which in turn drives their designs. Northrop Grumman was in search of finding a design that allowed for easier manufacturability as well as “wanting to do things in house”, as stated by the team’ clients, and the team creating a robotic drilling arm for these launch vehicles allows for a major step in that direction. By having a design such as what is proposed for this capstone allows for Northrop Grumman to avoid the time factor, meaning that they often have to go out of state to get certain things made or tested, and having such an impactful device the time to accomplish certain deliverables will be shortened immensely.