Automated inspection planning within the Rapid Design System

Abstract

This paper describes a methodology for automated inspection planning of machined parts within a featurebased CIM in which part geometry and tolerances are represented as "features." This representation of information as features is extended to inspection process planning where "inspection plan fragments" are inspection features containing specific information about how toleranced geometry is to be inspected. Tolerances can be either coordinate tolerances or geometric tolerances. A rule base of methods and detailed procedures for evaluating tolerances based upon industrial practices is used to generate the inspection plan fragments. A single tolerance can often be inspected in multiple ways resulting in the generation of many inspection plan fragments. Inspection planning for computer controlled coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) will be emphasized in this paper. The overall inspection process planning consists of generating all possible inspection plan fragments for each tolerance in the design and combining the inspection plan fragments into an overall time-efficient inspection plan. Special considerations which are important in inspection planning for CMMs such as the generation of collision free inspection probe paths will be briefly described. An algorithm for inspection process planning will be described and applied to a sample part. Once an inspection process plan is generated it can be translated into executable code for a computer controlled CMM.

Computer-Aided Inspection Planning—The state of the art

“…The system developed by Merat et al (1991) is part of a large effort to develop a Rapid Design System (RDS). The objective is to reduce the time from design to manufacture and inspection.…”