Automated Tool Selection for Computer-Aided Process Planning in Sheet Metal Bending

Bend sequencing and tool selection have long been the main hurdles for achieving automatic process planning for sheet metal bending. In this unique process, the complex shape and position transitions of workpieces make it hard to obtain a collision-free operation plan. The time-consuming involvement of human experts is often required to solve more complex problems. This paper presents a tool selection methodology to be integrated in the automatic bend sequencing system discussed in previous work, therefore contributing to fully automated process planning for bent sheet metal parts. Both the described selection strategy and the related algorithms have been implemented in an industrial software package. The results presented in this paper, as illustrated by a number of case studies, demonstrate that automatic process planning for sheet metal bending is feasible and that the developed system provides well-optimised solutions with a reasonable time complexity.