Mechanical part assembly planning with virtual mannequins

This paper deals with mechanical part assembly planning. The goal is to automatically compute a collision-free path for both the part to be assembled and the mannequin manipulating it. Two approaches are proposed according to the difficulty of the problem. Both are based on a general probabilistic diffusion algorithm working in the configuration space of the considered system. The first approach consists in first planning a path for the part alone and then in checking the feasibility of the solution by adding the mannequin. The second one considers the part grasped and the mannequin as a single system. While the first approach performs quickly the second one is able to solve more constrained and difficult cases. Both solutions are based on the same path planning library allowing the user to easily evaluate the proposed solutions. Experimental results based on feedback experiences in automotive industry are presented