Automatic planning for coordinate measuring machines

The formalization of the inspection planning methodology is the first and most important step towards a complete automation of inspection planning task. The integration of the different tasks is also a key issue in the development of an automated and robust inspection planner. This paper describes a methodology for automated inspection planning. Four main task were identified and integrated: (1) accessibility analysis of the part and its measurement points, (2) clustering of measurement points, (3) sequencing of measurement points, and (4) collision-free probe path generation. This methodology has been implemented and validated with several examples.