Automated design of product-flexible car body fixtures with software-supported part alignment using particle swarm optimization

Abstract

The Fraunhofer IWU has been developed specialized clamping robots for production of different car-models on one fixture. As a base for the fixture design, a method for optimal part alignment has been developed. For handling multitude of possibilities regarding the alignment of parts from different car-models, a specific software tool using particle swarm optimization has been created. The objective was to achieve similar travels for all clamping robots in this fixture. To facilitate the integration of the automated part alignment into fixture design, a further software tool for automatically designing a flexible fixture was modelled.