A graph partitioning approach for robot assembly sequences generation

The problem of automatically finding all the feasible assembly sequences for a set of n parts that construct a mechanical object is presented. A novel method which is feasible and practical in generating all the feasible assembly sequences when the number of parts is greatly increased is proposed. Generally, to generate all the assembly sequences, the precedence-logical forms are obtained from the answers of relation between a pair of parts (which is called liaison) consecutively questioned by a design engineer, and the assembly sequences are deduced by logic induction. An efficient network partitioning and pattern-matching operation to obtain precedence relations of the parts is proposed. This approach results in only n questions to be answered for a one-fixture assembly system. The proposed method shows feasibility and economy for a large number of parts assembly. Detailed algorithms, analysis, and examples are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme