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Rapid Manufacturing Lab (RML)
Head: David Bourne

Mailing address:
Carnegie Mellon University
Robotics Institute
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Location:
NSH 1612

Associated center: CIMDS

For more information, see this lab's homepage.

This page last updated - January 1999.

Our research involves the design and implementation of flexible machines, mechanical hardware, electronics, control and software. The goal is customizing, which is now in great demand. The new machine tool industry will allow corporations to respond to the ever changing patterns of world trade. The new manufacturing systems can analyze new products and automatically will produce near optimal plans for production. Adaptability is the key.

The research comprises a series of projects implementing an Intelligent Bending Workstation:

• Bend Sequence Planner
• BendCad Modeler
• Fine Motion Planner
• Grasping Planner
• Motion Planner
• Stacking Planner

Name - Title <Email Address>
• [Home] David Bourne - Principal Systems Scientist <db@ri.cmu.edu>

• Bend Sequence Planner - Finds the best sequence of bending operations and repositionings of the part in the robot gripper to make a bent sheet metal part.
• BendCad Modeler - Sheet metal design system for the Intelligent Bending Workstation
• Fine Motion Planner - The fine-motion planner computes a sequence of robot moves to safely unload the workpiece from the bending machine.
• Grasping Planner - Sheet metal grasp planning for the Intelligent Bending Workstation.
• Motion Planner
• Product Decomposition - a method of decomposing sheet-metal products into a few, easily manufactured parts
• Stacking Planner - Generates plans for polyhedral sheet metal parts.
• Tooling Planner - Supports various decision making steps related to bending tools and press-brake setups.

Note: This list may not be comprehensive. It contains only those publications in the RI publications database. Entries are listed in reverse chronological order.

• Interference-free polyhedral configurations for stacking
  V. Ayyadevara, D. Bourne, K. Shimada, and R.H. Sturges
  IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, Vol. 18, No. 2, April, 2002, pp. 147 - 165. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [612 KB] copyrighted

• Design and Manufacturing of Sheet Metal Parts: Using Features and Their Constraints to Aid Process Planning and to Resolve Manufacturability Problems
  C. Wang and D. Bourne
  Robotics & Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1997, pp. 281 - 294. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [227 KB], ps.gz [235 KB], ps.z [300 KB] copyrighted

• Using Features and Their Constraints to Aid Process Planning of Sheet Metal Parts
  C. Wang and D. Bourne
  Proc. IEEE. Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Vol. 1, May, 1995, pp. 1020-1026. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [744 KB] copyrighted

• Automated Setup Assembly Mechanisms for the Intelligent Machining Workstation
  F.B. Hazen
  tech. report CMU-RI-TR-90-20, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, November, 1990. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [2794 KB] copyrighted

• Toward the Interpretation of Acoustic Emissions in Machining
  R.H. Sturges, D. Bourne, and W. Yang
  tech. report CMU-RI-TR-91-25, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, November, 1990. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [911 KB] copyrighted