Intelligent fixture structure design based on knowledge ontology

Fixture configuration is an important stage in the whole fixture design process. Because of the complexity in fixture elements selection and assembling the selected as an entire fixture, it is still a challenge to improve the efficiency of the fixture configuration. By knowledge ontology modeling this paper presents a new methodology for fixture configuration. Firstly, the ontology models of fixture and workpiece are given to represent them respectively. Secondly, combined with the rule-based reasoning (RBR), the case-based reasoning (CBR) and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), an intelligent fixture selection method is proposed to get the suitable fixture by matching corresponding entities of fixture ontology and workpiece ontology. Then a parameter driven method is used to get fixture and its elements geometry and an automatic assemble method for assembling those elements to an entire fixture. Finally, the modeling, method and system are tested and verified by conducting a typical case.