Toward assembly sequence planning with flexible parts

A wide range of different approaches to assembly sequence planning has been described in the literature, but, to date, primarily assemblies of rigid parts have been considered. Yet flexible parts of all sorts are common in real world assemblies. This paper considers the special characteristics of operations on flexible parts in general and string-like parts (wires, cables, hoses, ropes, etc.) in particular. Different types of operations are discussed, and knowledge representation techniques for assembly states and operations are described, together with basic algorithms for queries on string-like assemblies