Exploration of Evolutionary Path Planning of Part Handling in Sheet Metal Bending

While the bending sequence planning has been intensively studied, design of the motion path of a sheet metal part in the bending operation tends to be ignored by researchers. Because during the bending operation, the space for maneuvering a sheet metal part is very small, collisions between the part and bending tools are likely to occur. When a robot is used to handle the part, the role of an automatic path-planning tool becomes more significant. In this study, an evolutionary pathplanning approach for robot-assisted handling of sheet metal parts in bending is proposed and implemented. The proposed approach globally searches the motion path space to identify feasible paths. Collision detection algorithms based on segment intersection are used to check the feasibility of the generated paths. This method can automatically design feasible handling operations for a robot. A simulation example on a simple “V” shaped part demonstrates that the approach is efficient and practical.Copyright © 2003 by ASME