Assembly Path Planning with Collision Avoidance

The assembly process plan describes the different stages to be achieved, from the initial product design ideas until the manufacturing phase. Usually, path planning is generated during the manufacturing steps. However, with the progress of computer tools and CAD environment, the automation of manufacturing lines has become a challenging issue to develop. This progress puts pressure on manufacturers to improve their competitiveness and to react and anticipate since the design phase. Consequently, developing an automatic tool supporting the engineers to generate assembly path planning during early concept phase is highly motivated. This is a challenging task to be carried out in a 3D environment. In this context, this work aims to develop a new approach permitting the generation of multidirectional assembly path planning starting from a CAD assembly model. The generated path should permit to escape collision with static obstacles of the external assembly environment. The different steps of the suggested method are presented. An illustrative example was treated for validation.