Case-based process planning with hierarchical plan merging

This research focuses on the development of an object-oriented case-based process planner which combines the advantages of the variant and generative approaches to process planning. The case-based process planner operates on general 3D prismatic parts, represented by a collection of features (e.g.: slots, pockets, holes, etc.). Each feature subplan is developed by the case-based planner. Then the feature subplans are combined into the global process plan for the part via a hierarchical plan merging mechanism. Abstracted feature subplans correspond to cases, which are used in subsequent planning operations to solve new problems. The abstracting and storing of feature subplans as cases is the primary mechanism by which the planner learns from its previous experiments to become more effective and efficient