Computing a Statistical Distribution of Stable Poses for a Polyhedron

In high-volume manufacturing, it is important to predict how parts will behave as they proceed through the assembly line. In this paper we describe a method for estimating the distribution of stable poses in a stream of identical polyhedral parts. We assume that each part’s initial orientation with the worksurface is a uniform random variable and that the part falls under quasi-static conditions (i.e. without dynamics). For an n-sided polyhedron, our algorithm runs in time O(n2).