System and method for inspecting a surface of an aircraft or spacecraft

A system for inspecting a surface structure of an aircraft or spacecraft, comprising:

• a ground vehicle having a drive,
• a manipulator, arranged on the ground vehicle, having multiple movement links arranged in an articulated manner in relation to one another,
• an inspection device arranged on the manipulator and movable by the manipulator,
• multiple proximity sensors, and
• a control unit,
• wherein the proximity sensors are distributed at least on the manipulator and are divided there into multiple zones and are configured to acquire a distance of the proximity sensor to an object in a respective acquisition range,
• wherein the drive and the proximity sensors are coupled to the control unit,
• wherein the inspection device is configured to determine a property of the surface structure and to identify points having a shape deviation by comparison to a setpoint property,
• wherein the control unit is configured to successively inspect the surface structure of the aircraft or spacecraft by successively moving the inspection device along the surface structure,
• wherein the control unit is configured to record distances acquired by the proximity sensors and to activate the drive and the manipulator in consideration of the acquired distances such that the inspection device is placed in succession at inspection positions at a predetermined distance to the surface structure and such that simultaneous clearance is maintained for the inspection device, each movement link of the manipulator, and the ground vehicle from the surface structure and any objects surrounding the surface structure at the same time,
• wherein the proximity sensors are arranged circumferentially on multiple movement links of the manipulator and divided into a plurality of zones corresponding to different manipulator regions, and
• wherein the control unit weights distances acquired from different zones as a function of the respective detected distances to simultaneously maintain a minimum distance between each manipulator region and surrounding objects during movement.