Model based planning and flexible scheduling of robotic assembly operations

Model-based planning of robotic assembly starts with the CAD description of a product. Together with such assembly-related information as tool requirements and fixture specifications, a planning system derives the ordering constraints among the tasks necessary for product assembly. Based on these constraints a flexible online scheduler determines the actual sequence of assembly operations to be used. The scheduler may follow different user-selected strategies. The concept of such a system and a short description of its actual implementation are presented