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.