CUSTOMER:	Bell Helicopter Textron www.bellhelicopter.com
TITLE:	Laser Assisted Automated Automatic N/C Tool Calibration Universal Fixture
FUNDING:	$28,816
GOAL:	To develop an optical calibration system for Bell Helicopter's Core Carver Facility - a 5-axis machine where cores for helicopter blades are machined.  If the blade cores are not machined to dimensional tolerance, scraping them during the composite lamination process incurs significant time and monetary loss to Bell.  The system developed used a precisely located tooling fixture, "sheets" of light into which a tooling ball was inserted and selectively moved, a computer based data acquisition system, and feedback to the Facility's controller to tare errors and greatly reduce the time involved with previous manual calibrations.