Automatic detection of subassemblies for disassembly sequence planning

Disassembly, the first process in remanufacturing, is labour-intensive due to the conditions of end-of-life products returned for remanufacture. Robotic disassembly is an attractive alternative to manual disassembly but robotic systems cannot plan disassembly sequences automatically and manual planning is still required. Several planning methods have been proposed to take away removable components sequentially. However, those methods do not work when it is required to break an assembly into subassemblies. This paper proposes a method for automatic detection of subassemblies. The approach starts with using an assembly matrix and simple logic gates to generate a contact matrix and a relation matrix. The paper details new algorithms used to detect subassemblies through manipulating the two matrices.