An approach to assembly sequence planning using ant colony optimization

In order to solve the problem of generating and optimizing the assembly sequences of a complex assembly, the oriented-mating graph model of the assembly and the related mating matrix are created. Then an improved ant colony optimization is used to solve the ASP problem. In the algorithm, the local and global pheromones are updated to help the ant colony find the global optimizations more quickly. In order to avoid being trapped by local optimizations and to accelerate the global convergence speed, an auto-modulation pheromone-volatilizing factor is introduced. Finally, a living example is given to prove the validity of the method.