Intelligent fixture configuration design based on ontology and knowledge components

To improve the reuse rate of design knowledge and design efficiency in fixture design process, an intelligent fixture configuration design method was proposed based on ontology and knowledge components in knowledge engineering. In the method, the knowledge representation of fixture design was achieved by building the ontology models of fixture, workpiece and actual design case. Through adopting the knowledge component technology and building the semantic mapping among ontologies, three kinds of knowledge components were created. A knowledge processing framework was established for fixture selection, dimension driving and assembling. Thus an intelligent configuration design pattern was formed and the organization, push and embedding of design knowledge were realized. Based on the above research effort, combined with Rule-Based Reasoning (RBR) and Case-Based Reasoning (CBR), an intelligent fixture selection method which could get a suitable fixture was proposed. A software system was developed for the realization of proposed method. An airplane part machining fixture design was used to verify the method and system.