Automated Assembly Analysis – Archimedes
Sandia National Laboratories' Intelligent Systems & Robotics Center (ISRC) developed Archimedes, a planning and visualization software tool used to generate, optimize, verify, and examine sequences of assembly. Archimedes allows product and process engineers to define assembly process constraints, automatically determine alternative assembly sequences satisfying those constraints, optimize the assembly process according to a user-specified quality metric, and visualize and communicate the results quickly and graphically.
Description
Archimedes determines multiple assembly sequences for a product. Given a CAD model of the product, the program automatically finds part-to-part contacts, generates collision-free insertion motions, and chooses assembly order. The designer specifies a quality metric in terms of application-specific costs for standard assembly process steps, such as part insertion, fastening, and subassembly inversion. Archimedes considers thousands of combinations of ordering and operation choices in its search for the best assembly sequences, and ranks the valid sequences by the quality metric. Archimedes enables faster and more error-free generation of higher quality assembly sequences without physical prototypes. Design changes can be tested immediately for their effect on the valid and optimal assembly sequences. Designers and process engineers can rapidly assess assemblability and communicate design-for-assembly (DFA) requirements.
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Interactive Planning Combined with an engineer's knowledge of application-specific assembly process requirements, Archimedes allows systematic exploration of the space of possible assembly sequences. The engineer uses a simple graphic interface to place constraints on the valid assembly sequences, such as defining subassemblies, requiring that certain parts be placed consecutively with or before other parts, declaring preferred mating directions, etc. Archimedes generates all collision-free assembly sequences satisfying the constraints, and ranks them according to the user's quality metric. Graphic visualization enables the engineer to easily identify process requirements to add as sequence constraints. Planning is fast, enabling an iterative constrain-plan-view-constrain cycle. Archimedes enables optimal assembly sequence generation through explicit discovery and documentation of assembly process requirements and feeds the systems results back to the designers to further enable design-for-lifecycle analysis. The user can easily estimate the cost and time associated with the assembly, or disassembly and re-assembly for maintenance, of a product using the Design-For-Lifecycle-Cost (DFLC) analysis module. |
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Applications
- Assemblability analysis
- Design for assembly
- Assembly line layout
- Assembly process optimization
- Assembly instruction generation
- Design for recyclability
- Real-time replanning for shop-floor contingencies
- Robot code generation
- Disassembly/disposal optimization
- Assembly training video generation
- Technical publication documentation
- Accessibility verification
Program Status
Archimedes 4.0 is being applied to a wide variety of products from industry and government and has been tested on over 100 assemblies. Statistical results indicate huge savings in both time and money. Early reports by some of our customers show more than a 75 percent reduction in time schedules, and 25 percent reduction in prototype-fabrication costs. Several private sector companies have expressed an interest in the Archimedes technology. As part of Sandia's Technology Transfer program, the laboratory is able to partner with private companies to perform research and development on technologies that are of mutual benefit to the laboratory and the private sector. We will consider partnering with interested parties to update Archimedes with new technologies.
The Archimedes System reads CAD data in ACIS® format, which is generated directly by AutoCAD®, Aries®, SolidWorks, and many other modelers. Archimedes also reads faceted parts representations such as .stl files. ACIS® translators exist from Pro/ENGINEER®, STEP, and other formats. Archimedes is available on workstations from Silicon Graphics, Hewlett Packard, and Sun Microsystems.
Also see: http://www.sandia.gov/archimedes
Paul Wolfenbarger
(505) 844-5458
email: prwolfe@sandia.gov
