A practical packing strategy for the automated handling of irregular shapes

Abstract

This paper has two distinguishable, but interwoven themes: (i) maximising the use of the context information available from a given task, by the application of a systems engineering approach to the packing problem, and (ii) the development of an adaptive packing strategy for random shapes, using morphological and heuristic techniques. The packing techniques and applications discussed in previous papers 1-3 provide an important motivation to the development of automated packing systems. They also indicate the best means of progressing the development of flexible packing systems. The characteristics required in a flexible packing system are summarised below: