Product information modeling for capturing design intent for computer-aided intelligent assembly modeling

Intelligent assembly is a bottleneck to be broken with urgency in the on-going revolution of manufacturing industry. However, computer-aided assembly modeling as an important supporting technology is still suffering from the problems of too many manual interventions and low-level intelligence. An intelligent assembly modeling technology was previously developed based on design intent (DI), however there lacks systematical and supportive product information model. Consequently, a novel product information model that can capture DI for computer-aided intelligent assembly modeling is established, based on the previously developed concept of interaction feature pair (IFP). The corresponding meta class model is also constructed utilizing the object-oriented technology. On this basis, the implementation process of the product information model, as well as algorithms supporting the process of computer-aided intelligent assembly modeling, is clarified, and the algorithms include IFP identification and intelligent part matching. Computer-aided intelligent assembly modeling prototype system based on the product information model, together with a case study, validated the feasibility of the proposed technology.