Minimizing user queries in interactive assembly planning

Computer-aided assembly planners must interact effectively with manufacturing engineers. Previous interactive planners either ask the manufacturing engineer a large number of questions, or require very complicated answers to a few questions. Either of these approaches makes planning difficult. A dual approach to this problem is described. Most assembly operations are checked from the CAD models of the assembly's parts using simple techniques. An intermediate level of question, i.e., questions that are simple enough to be easily and accurately answered, but whose answers provide a great deal of information to the planner. This dual approach is effective in experiments on real assemblies, reducing the number of user queries by several orders of magnitude without sacrificing accuracy.<<ETX>>