AN IT VIEW ON PERSPECTIVES OF COMPUTER-AIDED PROCESS PLANNING RESEARCH

This paper presents current research perspectives on Computer Aided Pr ocess Planning (CAPP) and it covers articles and other related publica tions that appeared especially in the last seven years. It aims to pro vide a clear understanding of the directions and challenges in the fie ld. The current research efforts on CAPP systems focus on both variant as well as generative and hybrid systems. A majority of these systems apply expert system or artificial intelligence based techniques. At t he same time a strong emphasis is placed on integrating CAPP and its r elated activities into one system. As a bridge between Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) CAPP relies on goo d interfaces between these systems. Automatic feature recognition syst ems can be used to interface CAD and CAPP. Various methods are availab le to per-form feature recognition using solid model of the part. This paper first provides a general introduction to CAPP along with its ba ckground. It also gives an overview of manufacturing features and feat ure recognition research. Recent CAPP research and systems are discuss ed in terms of their general characteristics. Finally, shortcomings of current systems and expected future developments art considered. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.