Overview of Assembly Modeling, Planning, and Instruction Generation Research at the Advanced Manufacturing Lab

Most products require some form of assembly. Hence assembly operations are a very important part of the manufacturing process. Performing assembly operations requires time and effort and hence it contributes to manufacturing cost. In many applications, it is desirable to reduce the number of assembly operations by consolidating multiple parts into a single part. Processes such as multi-material 3D printing and in-mold assembly can be used to reduce the assembly operations. In many applications assembly operations cannot be eliminated. Designers and process engineers need software tools to manage assembly deign and generate instructions to perform assembly operations. Developing these tools requires developing new geometric reasoning algorithms. Our research is developing algorithmic foundations for realizing assembly design and planning tools. Many assembly operations are performed by humans. Humans require training to perform these assembly operations. We have developed a virtual environment based training tool that enables humans to learn complex assembly operations in the virtual environment. This report presents a summary of work in the assembly area in the Advanced Manufacturing Lab. Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems have become very popular in the industry. These CAD systems are being used to generate models of parts and assemblies. These models are used as a basis for engineering analysis and generate manufacturing plans. CAD models also allow virtual prototyping. This reduces the need for physical prototyping. Nowadays, organizations routinely set up databases of CAD models to enable all participants in the product development process to have access to 3D data to support their functions. Specifically, manufacturing and service engineers are expected to greatly benefit from these databases. These databases are updated with the latest versions of parts and assemblies. This significantly improves information dissemination. CAD databases for even moderate size companies are expected to be large in size. A product assembly can contain many subassemblies and each subassembly can contain many parts. Therefore, even a small organization that has multiple product lines may add hundreds of assemblies to their database every year. In addition to supporting downstream manufacturing and service operations, assembly databases can be very useful during the design phase as well. There are two main uses of an assembly database during the design stage. The first possible usage is to locate existing assemblies that can be reused in a new product. Such reuse reduces product development time by eliminating the need for modeling, analysis, and process planning for the assembly being reused. …