Auto-Assembly: a framework for automated robotic assembly directly from CAD

TL;DR

Auto-Assembly is a comprehensive framework that automates robotic assembly directly from CAD files, integrating design analysis, sequence planning, control code generation, and execution for flexible modular assembly tasks.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel integrated framework for automated robotic assembly directly from CAD, demonstrating its flexibility and practical implementation with two robots.

Findings

Successful demonstration on modular parts with fastening

Flexible testing on different input designs

Complete automation pipeline from design to physical assembly

Abstract

In this work, we propose a framework called Auto-Assembly for automated robotic assembly from design files and demonstrate a practical implementation on modular parts joined by fastening using a robotic cell consisting of two robots. We show the flexibility of the approach by testing it on different input designs. Auto-Assembly consists of several parts: design analysis, assembly sequence generation, bill-of-process (BOP) generation, conversion of the BOP to control code, path planning, simulation, and execution of the control code to assemble parts in the physical environment.