Reasoning on the Location of Components for Assembly Packaging

The process of locating components in an available space while satisfying spatial relationships among the components is called packaging. The task requires extensive spatial reasoning about geometric shapes. It is a generic design task common to many domains. It is also very time-consuming, especially as machines become more compact and complex. This paper describes progress toward automation of the packaging problem. An approach is proposed to determine the optimal locations of components in an assembly from spatial relationships between the components. The approach utilizes a novel combination of optimization and solid modeling techniques.