Identification and Classification of Relationships in Collaborative Virtual Assembly

Engineered assembly may be treated mathematically as a clustering problem, in which cluster analysis hinges critically on the relationships between objects and attributes. This paper explores an analogical approach, via the evaluation of relationships against conventional assembly means, to derive and reveal the necessary relationships in collaborative virtual assembly. The inherent relationships in both assembly means are then extracted so that unknown relationships in collaborative virtual assembly can be identified. The resulting relationships highlighted will facilitate the further development of new algorithms for Web-based collaborative virtual assembly. The example of a bench clamp assembly is used to illustrate some notions presented in the paper.