Purpose: Machining fixtures must fit exactly the work piece to support it appropriately. Even slight change in the design of the work piece renders the costly fixture useless. Substitution of traditional fixtures by a programmable multi-robot system supporting the work pieces requires a specific control system and a specific programming method enabling its quick reconfiguration. Design/methodol...

Fixture layout planning refers to the task of identifying the locating and clamping positions on part faces. This spatial placement directly governs the workpiece accuracy and stability under machining loads. This paper reports the design and implementation of an intelligent system, INTFIX, to accomplish this task. It describes the algorithms designed and implemented for automatic generation of...

Packaging products such as telephones and two-way radios after assembly is a common manufacturing task. Carton folding is a packaging operation performed by human operators or with fixed automation. We present a flexible method to fold cardboard cartons using fixtures; a carton blank is folded by moving it through a fixture with a robot. This method of using interchangeable fixtures enables rap...

The article contains the rationale for the development of the computer-aided fixture design system (CAFD). The place of the CAFD among other automated systems is considered and the data flows are found between them. The structure of the CAFD system is suggested, which is distinguished by the module of optimization and allows to select the optimal fixture for the given production conditions. The...

This paper presents the characterization of a PCI-express test fixture that was created to passively probe a x16 link on a PCB. This fixture plugs into the 48-pin, midbus footprint which has been adopted by as the industry standard for observing PCIexpress links on a PCB. This fixture is used to observe signals and pass them to a piece of test equipment (TDR, VNA, or oscilloscope). Engineers re...

OBJECTIVE To investigate microbiological biofilm contamination of retrieved bone-anchored hearing aids. MATERIALS AND METHODS Nine failed, retrieved bone-anchored hearing aids and 16 internal screws were examined by scanning electron microscopy. A fixture from a failing implant, which had been removed and disassembled under aseptic conditions, was cultured. Finally, an internal screw from a n...