Development of automatic fixturing design system

The workpiece fixturing process has been automated only in the mass production area. In the usual small-lot production area, workpiece fixturing is carried out manually and depends on the skill and experience of tool operations. In this paper we present the development of an automatic fixturing design system which proposes clamping, locating and supporting points to instruct the operators on the fixturing method. The proposed system consists of three modules. The first omit is a form identifier which identifies the form of a workpiece from 3D-CAD data. The next module is a fixturing inference system which proposes the method of fixturing. The last one provides a learning system which learns the heuristic knowledge of skilled workers in the fixturing design process. The proposed system indicates the locations of fixturing devices reliably far from the machining area in order to suppress interfacing with the tools during machining.