Virtual maintenance system with a two-staged ant colony optimization algorithm

Virtual reality (VR) now a day is progressively being used in our manufacturing environments. In production or maintenance processes, the most important VR application can be assembly areas as the efficiency of a production or maintenance scheme primarily depends on the assembly and disassembly (A/D) sequence, number of gripper changes and the path used in an A/D process. In this paper, a novel optimum assembly algorithm with ant colony algorithm is proposed to solve the maintenance assembly process for 3D objects and complex environments, and to find both optimal sequence and 3D path planning. Sequentially, the assembly sequence was optimized by a traditional ant colony optimization algorithm and then, the 3D path planning with the optimized sequence information was optimized by combining an ant colony algorithm enhanced by potential field concepts. Simulation results showed that proposed algorithm has faster convergence rate towards the optimal solution when compared with existing algorithms based on genetics and traditional ant colony approach.