Convex relaxation for optimal fixture layout design

Abstract This article proposes a general fixture layout design framework that directly integrates the system equation with the convex relaxation method. Note that the optimal fixture design problem is a large-scale combinatorial optimization problem; we relax it to a convex Semi-Definite Programming (SDP) problem by adopting sparse learning and SDP relaxation techniques. It can be solved efficiently by existing convex optimization algorithms and thus generates a near-optimal fixture layout. A real case study in the half-to-half fuselage assembly process indicates the superiority of our proposed algorithm compared to the current industry practice and state-of-art methods.