A Temporal Coherent Topology Optimization Approach for Assembly Planning of Bespoke Frame Structures


METADATA ONLY
Loading...

Date

2023-08

Publication Type

Journal Article

ETH Bibliography

yes

Citations

Altmetric
METADATA ONLY

Data

Rights / License

Abstract

We present a computational framework for planning the assembly sequence of bespoke frame structures. Frame structures are one of the most commonly used structural systems in modern architecture, providing resistance to gravitational and external loads. Building frame structures requires traversing through several partially built states. If the assembly sequence is planned poorly, these partial assemblies can exhibit substantial deformation due to self-weight, slowing down or jeopardizing the assembly process. Finding a good assembly sequence that minimizes intermediate deformations is an interesting yet challenging combinatorial problem that is usually solved by heuristic search algorithms. In this paper, we propose a new optimization-based approach that models sequence planning using a series of topology optimization problems. Our key insight is that enforcing temporal coherent constraints in the topology optimization can lead to sub-structures with small deformations while staying consistent with each other to form an assembly sequence. We benchmark our algorithm on a large data set and show improvements in both performance and computational time over greedy search algorithms. In addition, we demonstrate that our algorithm can be extended to handle assembly with static or dynamic supports. We further validate our approach by generating a series of results in multiple scales, including a real-world prototype with a mixed reality assistant using our computed sequence and a simulated example demonstrating a multi-robot assembly application.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Volume

42 (4)

Pages / Article No.

144

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

Organisational unit

09620 - Coros, Stelian / Coros, Stelian check_circle

Notes

Funding

866480 - Computational Models of Motion for Fabrication-aware design of Bioinspired Systems (EC)
200644 - Fabrication-oriented Design of Nonlinear Network Materials (SNF)

Related publications and datasets