Developing an Architecture of an Automated Robot Assembly Planning System based on CAD and BOM Databases

Abstract

This paper provides an information system architecture based on CAD, BOM and Robot databases to automatically generate robot assembly plans from CAD files. A STEP CAD file for an assembly product is translated into both the shape objects in the CAD database and the product structure objects in the BOM database. The architecture identifies form features and possible assembly directions of the component items from the shape objects in the CAD database. Then it sequences the components and generates a manufacturing BOM to represent a sequence of robot operations. Finally it generates a robot assembly plan and represents it with a process BOM that can express not only necessary items and materials but also routings for the final assembly product. Without human assistance, the robot assemlby plan can contol robot arms to assemble products form CAD models. This study implemented the architecture and applied an example assembly product to automatically generate a robot assembly plan. This shows the architecture is feasible and the integrated CAD and BOM databases can support the automated robot assembly planning.