Assembly planning for B-rep objects

An automated manufacturing system requires the ability to simulate manipulation of objects given only their CAD models in order to establish valid assembly-process plans. A disassembly engine is presented which takes boundary representation (B-rep) models of components along with the positions of the components when they are assembled to form a product, as well as models of workcell components such as walls and table surfaces, and derives a sequence of translational subassembly operations which will disassemble the product. The reverse of this sequence gives an assembly sequence for the product. The disassembly technique is centered on two modules: a freedom-determination module uses an iterative surface subdivision technique to determine the freedom of movement of each component along the primary axes, and a search strategy module uses heuristic agents to reason about potentially good moves of a component subject to its freedom of movement. This system is able to reason about the effect of gravity and stability on assembly