Representation of Cable Harness for Assembly Sequence Planning

The automated manipulation of deformable linear objects (DLO) has been widely studied. Some of the typical tasks, i.e. plugging, insertion, routing, and obstacle avoidance can now be accomplished by robots in certain conditions. In terms of cable harness assembly, which has variant categories and large number of tasks, assembly sequence of tasks has an impact on both assembly feasibility and assembly cost such as cycle time. However, a mathematical representation of cables for assembly sequence planning is not well formulated. This paper aims at establishing such a mathematical representation as the foundation of cable assembly sequence planning. We first give a mathematical definition of cable topological structure and assembly tasks as the foundation for establishing mathematical representation. Then, derivation algorithms are introduced to obtain both algebraical and graphical representations of a cable harness. The algorithms are later applied to typical examples for proof-of-concept.