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Component positioning is an important part of aircraft assembly, aiming at the problem that it is difficult to accurately fall into the corresponding ball socket for the ball head connected with aircraft component. This study aims to propose a ball head adaptive positioning method based on impedance control.

First, a target impedance model for ball head positioning is constructed, and a reference positioning trajectory is generated online based on the contact force between the ball head and the ball socket. Second, the target impedance parameters were optimized based on the artificial fish swarm algorithm. Third, to improve the robustness of the impedance controller in unknown environments, a controller is designed based on model reference adaptive control (MRAC) theory and an adaptive impedance control model is built in the Simulink environment. Finally, a series of ball head positioning experiments are carried out.

During the positioning of the ball head, the contact force between the ball head and the ball socket is maintained at a low level. After the positioning, the horizontal contact force between the ball head and the socket is less than 2 N. When the position of the contact environment has the same change during ball head positioning, the contact force between the ball head and the ball socket under standard impedance control will increase to 44 N, while the contact force of the ball head and the ball socket under adaptive impedance control will only increase to 19 N.

In this paper, impedance control is used to decouple the force-position relationship of the ball head during positioning, which makes the entire process of ball head positioning complete under low stress conditions. At the same time, by constructing an adaptive impedance controller based on MRAC, the robustness of the positioning system under changes in the contact environment position is greatly improved.

In the digital assembly system of large aircraft components (LAC), the docking trajectory of LAC is an important factor affecting the docking accuracy and stability of the LAC. The main content of docking trajectory planning is how to move the LAC from the initial posture and position to the target posture and position (TPP). This paper aims to propose a trajectory planning method of LAC based on measured data.

First, the posture and position error model of the wing is constructed according to the measured data of the measurement points (MPs) and the fork lug joints. Second, the particle swarm optimization algorithm based on the dynamic inertia factor is used to optimize the TPP of the wing. Third, to ensure the efficiency and stability of posture adjustment, the S-shaped curve is used as the motion trajectory of LAC, and the parameters of the trajectory are solved by the generalized multiplier method. Finally, a series of docking experiments are carried out.

During the process of posture adjustment, the motion of the numerical control locator (NCL) is stable, and the interaction force between the NCLs is always within a reasonable range. After the docking, the MPs are all within the tolerance range, and the coaxiality error of the fork lug hole is less than 0.2 mm.

In this paper, the measured data rather than the theoretical design model is used to solve the TPP, which improves the docking accuracy of LAC. Experiment results show that the proposed trajectory method can complete the LAC docking effectively and improve the docking accuracy.

With the improvement of modern aircraft requirements for safety, long life and economy, higher quality aircraft assembly is needed. However, due to the manufacturing and assembly errors of the posture adjustment mechanism (PAM) used in the digital assembly of aircraft large component (ALC), the posture alignment accuracy of ALC is difficult to be guaranteed, and the posture adjustment stress is easy to be generated. Aiming at these problems, this paper aims to propose a calibration method of redundant actuated parallel mechanism (RAPM) for posture adjustment.

First, the kinematics model of the PAM is established, and the influence of the coupling relationship between the axes of the numerical control locators (NCL) is analyzed. Second, the calibration method based on force closed-loop feedback is used to calibrate each branch chain (BC) of the PAM, and the solution of kinematic parameters is optimized by Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC). Third, the uncertainty of kinematic calibration is analyzed by Monte Carlo method. Finally, a simulated posture adjustment system was built to calibrate the kinematics parameters of PAM, and the posture adjustment experiment was carried out according to the calibration results.

The experiment results show that the proposed calibration method can significantly improve the posture adjustment accuracy and greatly reduce the posture adjustment stress.

In this paper, a calibration method based on force feedback is proposed to avoid the deformation of NCL and bracket caused by redundant driving during the calibration process, and RANSAC method is used to reduce the influence of large random error on the calibration accuracy.

Large gear components widely exist in the transmission system of helicopters, ships, etc. Due to the small assembly clearance of large gear components, using an automatic docking system based on position control will lead to forced assembly. The purpose of this paper is to reduce the assembly stress of large gear components by an active compliant docking technology based on distributed force sensors.

Firstly, aiming at the noise interference in three-dimensional force sensor (TDFS), Kalman filter and Savitzky–Golay filter are used to process the sensor’s output signal. Secondly, the active compliant docking control model is constructed according to the principle of impedance control. Thirdly, the contact force is calculated based on the Euler equation, and the impedance control parameters are tuned by the particle swarm optimization algorithm. Finally, an active compliant docking system of a large gear structure based on distributed force sensor is built in the laboratory to verify the proposed method.

The experimental results show that the contact force and contact torque gradually decrease in all directions and are always in the safe range during the docking process. The feasibility of this method in practical application is preliminarily demonstrated.

The distributed TDFSs are used to replace the traditional six-dimensional force sensor in the active compliant docking system of gear components, which solves the problem of the small bearing capacity of the conventional active compliant docking system. This method can also be used for the docking of other large components.

The measurement of aircraft barycenter is a verification of theoretical barycenter and is an important step of aircraft development. In the traditional measurement method of aircraft barycenter, the posture of the aircraft needs to be adjusted manually and is measured by optical instruments. The efficiency of posture adjustment depends on the proficiency of workers, and the accuracy of measurement is not high. In view of these problems of the current barycenter measurement method, this paper aims to propose an aircraft barycenter measurement method based on multi-posture.

In this method, the numerical control locator is used as a supporting part to fix and adjust the aircraft, and the calculation model of aircraft barycenter is established according to the principle of rigid body rotation and the principle of moment balance. Then, the influence of the main error sources on the measurement accuracy of aircraft barycenter is analyzed by Monte Carlo simulation, and the measurement accuracy is compared with that of the barycenter measurement method based on horizontal posture. Finally, the experiment platform of barycenter measurement was built in the laboratory and the experiments were carried out.

The experimental results show that the barycenter measurement method proposed in this paper has obvious advantages in measurement accuracy and efficiency compared with the traditional method.

This method can be used to measure the barycenter of different types of aircraft quickly and automatically.

Flexible tooling for adjusting the posture of large components of aircraft (LCA) is composed of several numerical control locators (NCLs). Because of the manufacture and installation errors of NCL, the traditional control method of NCL may cause great interaction force between NCLs and form the internal force of LCA during the process of posture adjustment. Aiming at this problem, the purpose of this paper is to propose a control method for posture adjustment system based on hybrid force-position control (HFPC) to reduce the internal force of posture adjustment.

First of all, the causes of internal force of posture adjustment were analyzed by using homogeneous transformation matrix and inverse kinematics. Then, axles of NCLs were divided into position control axle and force control axle based on the screw theory, and the dynamic characteristics of each axle were simulated by MATLAB. Finally, a simulated posture adjustment system was built in the laboratory to carry out HFPC experiment and was compared with the other two traditional control methods for posture adjustment.

The experiment results show that HFPC method for redundant actuated parallel mechanism (RAPM) can significantly reduce the interaction force between NCLs.

In this paper, HFPC is applied to the control of the posture adjustment system, which reduces the internal force of LCA and improves the assembly quality of aircraft parts.

Posture adjustment plays an important role in spacecraft manufacturing. The traditional posture adjustment method, which has a large workload and is difficult to guarantee the quality of posture adjustment, cannot meet the requirements of modern spacecraft manufacturing. This paper aims to optimize the trajectory of posture adjustment, reduce the internal force of the posture adjustment mechanism and improve the accuracy of the system.

First, the measuring point is measured by a laser tracker and the position and posture of the cabin is solved. Then, Newton–Euler method is used to construct the dynamic model of the posture adjustment system (PAS) without internal force. Finally, the adjustment time is optimized based on Fibonacci search method and the trajectory of the cabin is fitted by the fifth order polynomial.

The simulation results show that, compared with the other trajectory planning methods, this method can effectively avoid the internal force of posture adjustment caused by redundant driving, and the trajectory of velocity and acceleration obtained are continuous, meeting the engineering constraints.

In this paper, a dynamic model of PAS without internal force is constructed. The trajectory planning of posture adjustment based on this model can improve the quality of cabin assembly.

The main purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of intellectual capital efficiency on US multinational software companies' performance from 2012 to 2016 by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA).

It adopts a new slacks-based measure (SBM) to obtain a more accurate performance estimation and rank between companies. Regression analysis is used to test the overall IC and each of its elements (Human Capital, Innovation Capital, Process Capital and Customer Capital).

The univariate result shows that multinational companies are more efficient than non-multinational companies. However, the regression result shows that multinationality can hardly explain the firm efficiency of software firms. Another interesting finding is that intellectual capital has a positive and significant impact on software firm performance in the US human capital influences firm efficiency directly. However, when human capital is combined with the other elements of IC, the contribution of human capital becomes less significant. This is because people may think that innovation capital, process capital and customer capital can replace human capital, but it is not. In short, human capital may affect firm efficiency through other elements of IC (innovation capital, process capital and customer capital) as it is the base of other elements.

The results show that multinational companies have higher efficiency scores than non-multinational companies. In addition, Intellectual capital has a positive and significant impact on software firm performance in the US human capital influences firm efficiency directly. However, when human capital is combined with the other elements of IC, the contribution of human capital becomes less significant. This is because people may think that innovation capital, process capital and customer capital can replace human capital, but it is not. In short, human capital may affect firm efficiency through other elements of IC (innovation capital, process capital and customer capital) as it is the base of other elements.

Overall, the study highlights the needs of having intellectual capital and its elements (Human Capital, Innovation Capital, Process Capital and Customer Capital) to increase firm efficiency.

First, the authors use a more comprehensive elements of IC, which are human capital, innovation capital, process capital and customer capital for a better IC measurement. Second, this study makes the first attempt using the DSBM model via DEA to examine the operating efficiency of US multinational software firms.

Consensus on how intellectual capital (IC) affects corporate performance is limited because of various measurement models of IC and corporate performance. This study thus aims to further the debate on the relationship between IC and corporate performance from the perspectives of nonlinearity, the capital values of IC and the use of a holistic measure of corporate performance.

Using 1,395 firm-year observations derived from Vietnamese listed companies from 2010 to 2018, this study focuses on (1) presenting an IC model benchmarked on value-creating expenses; (2) using a directional distance function (DDF)-based stochastic nonparametric envelopment of data (StoNED) framework to scrutinize multiple performance indicators and the capital values of people, structures and relationships simultaneously; and (3) adopting firm-year cluster-robust regressions to analyze the nonlinear association between IC and corporate performance empirically with an appropriate U test.

Results suggest that human capital (HC), structural capital (SC) and relational capital (RC) are the main contributors of high corporate efficiency, whereas only HC and RC contribute to high corporate profitability. These results are absent when this study employs the conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA), which is also a multidimensional framework, as the dependent variable. More importantly, IC and its components can improve corporate performance, namely, both corporate efficiency and corporate profitability up to a critical point, after which the effects would drop.

Overall, this study highlights not only the need to invest in IC but also its associated costs. That is, policymakers also need to note the marginal cost of investing in IC, which may in the end outweigh the benefits from IC.

This study extends IC-related studies by investigating the nonlinear relationship between IC and corporate performance. Moreover, the value of this study also lies in the multidimensional DDF-based StoNED framework.

This study aims to examine the relationships among International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption, earnings management, and corporate efficiency.

First, the authors employ the epsilon-based measure (EBM) of the data envelopment analysis to measure the corporate performance of the Taiwanese electronics industry from 2011 to 2014. Second, the authors regress the IFRS adoption and earnings management on corporate efficiency.

The findings show that the corporate efficiency deteriorated after IFRS adoption. Although the regression analysis shows that the relationship between earnings management and corporate efficiency is significantly positive, the authors find that IFRS adoption is effective in unveiling earnings management. Moreover, IFRS adoption moderates the impact earnings management and corporate efficiency.

This study provides reference for decision-makers in the application of accounting principles and in the understanding of the IFRS impact adoption.

IFRS adoption can either facilitate or limit the earnings management that would affect corporate efficiency significantly and help the electronics industry as well as investors to know the changes in accounting principles and their effects on corporate efficiency.

The authors use the EBM of efficiency model to measure corporate efficiency and employ the modified Jones model to measure earnings management.