Rule-Based System for Assembly Planning Using Features

We present an approach to assembly planning procedure based on assembly features and assembly processes. Most of the feature-based process planning has been done in the machining domain. The focus of this paper is to map that methodology to assembly planning using four phases: feasibility of the approach, development of assembly feature taxonomy, development of assembly process taxonomy, and development of rule for assembly process selection for a given assembly model. The first phase was based on a literature review and previous authors' work in machining process planning. In the second and third phases, we developed taxonomies of assembly features and assembly processes and implemented some portions as a research prototype IMAPlan. The fourth phase is devoted to building a rule base for assembly process selection based on dimensions and tolerance and affinity between assembly features and alternate assembly processes. The approach is demonstrated on a simple test case with several various assembly requirements.