The main objective of the WELDER project is to design, develop and deploy two robot-based, modular, flexible (Plug-and-Produce) and fully operative welding solutions (namely, ultrasonic welding and resistance welding end-effectors), including all the needed tooling and auxiliaries for performing the longitudinal barrel joint of the 8 m long fuselage at the Multi-Functional Fuselage Demonstrator.

Moreover, WELDER will be focused on implementing an online monitoring and control system based on an end-to-end digital manufacturing solution, which will establish a bidirectional dataflow to feed the whole lifecycle management digital twin and, thus, optimising the process and product performance while enabling new approval/acceptance procedures. Therefore, the successful execution of the WELDER project will become the spearhead of the aerospace industry thermoplastic adoption strategy through the provision and demonstration of the airplane fuselage welding replacing conventional joining systems that currently relies on fastening, riveting and adhesives, thus highly improving the environmental and economic performance of the aerospace sector, according to CS2 objectives.

The following results will also be achieved at the end of the project:

• A methodology for integrating new welding equipment (ultrasonic and resistance) on existing end-users´ facilities, regarding equipment set-up, tooling and auxiliary's integration.
• Frame coupling designs validation and an optimised manufacturing process based on the resistance metal mesh embedding within the coupling product.
• Inline monitoring and control digital pipeline in view to directly feeding into the demonstrators Product Lifecycle Management Digital Twin within 3D experience.
• Equipment and process optimisation based on real-process data gathering and feeding into the simulation and design tools.