An automatic assembly planning system

An automatic assembly planning system which takes the CAD description of a product as input and automatically generates an assembly plan subject to the resource constraint of a given assembly cell is presented. The system improves the flexibility and productivity of FMSs and is composed of five modules: world database, simulated world model, knowledge acquisition mechanism, planning knowledge base, and assembly planner. The world database contains the information from a designer which provides the information about the product and the assembly cell. The knowledge acquisition mechanism acquires knowledge necessary for assembly planning, that is, the precedence knowledge among assembly tasks, the fixture specification for the assembly, and the tool requirement for the assembly tasks. The acquired knowledge forms the planning knowledge base. The simulated world model keeps track of the current state of the assembly world. In the initial state, all the components are separated, while in the final state, all the components are assembled. The assembly planner is made up of a set of production rules which models the effects of real assembly tasks. By repeatedly applying these production rules to the simulated world state, the planner transforms the initial state into the final state. The set of rules applied forms the assembly plan. Examples are given