SURVEY OF FIXTURE DESIGN AUTOMATION

The present survey is intended to provide the information, summarizing research achievements within the last ten years in the field of Fixtu re Design Automation (FDA). In the first part, the importance of a stu dy of fixture design automation is discussed and the state of the art in fixture design automation is presented with figures. In the second part, an overview of fixture design automation is presented, and the s tructure of a CIM system integrated with automatic fixture design syst em is also proposed. In the third part, approaches in fixture design a utomation are reviewed. In the fourth part, a survey of Automated Fixt ure Design (AFD) systems is presented noting specific features which d escribe the present status and allow comparison of these systems. In t he fifth part, future trends are proposed. Based on studying 82 papers and 5 dissertations on FDA, twenty two currently existing AFD systems are summarized and listed in table 1.