Research on part multiple process routes decision-making based on ant colony algorithm

To satisfy new requirements of process planning for enterprises, a method of multiple process routes decision-making using Ant Colony Algorithm (ACA) was proposed. Based on geometrical and technological requirements and the available machining resources, the solution space for process planning was formed by all the procedure-nodes of components' characteristics. Basic principles of process planning were identified as constraints for operation sequences. All procedure-nodes in solution space were searched through ACA under search rules constraints so as to find the optimal procedure sequence, which was completely conforming to search rules of procedure-nodes. Finally, an example was presented to verify the feasibility of this method. The result showed that the ACA was able to find the feasible process routes for a given part.