An Intelligent Fixture System (IFS) is currently being developed to hold a family of cylinder heads for machining operations. This system incorporates a Part Location System (PLS) to locate the workpiece reference frame of a cylinder head relative to a pallet. The PLS collects coordinate data from the joint face surface and dowel holes of the cylinder head. The PLS subsequently applies a part location algorithm to this data in order to: 1) associate the workpiece reference frame with respect to the joint face and holes, 2) locate the reference frame with respect to the pallet fixture in which the cylinder head is clamped. This paper describes the development and evaluation of two part location algorithms that have been created, and experimentally evaluated for this application.
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