Active variation compensation in vehicle body conceptual assembly

In this paper, an intelligent heuristic optimization algorithm in active variation compensation is proposed to improve the dimension accuracy in the assembly of a vehicle body by finding the optimal configuration of joint types and the corresponding assembly sequence to compensate variation accumulation in the conceptual assembly process. The authors develop and apply the algorithm to predict variation accumulation and then develop compensating assembly schemes to accomplish optimal joint configuration and assembly sequence compensating for the unnecessary or surplus variation. The essence of the active variation compensation algorithm means measuring and correcting assembling variations during the assembly conceptual process. The paper employs the design of experiment (DOE) approach to verify the heuristic optimization method in the simple application case.