CATIA and “component” path generation question

I am looking at a project where our customer wants a G-Code based solution for a large assembly fixture. I can’t go into a lot of detail, but suffice to say I need to take a component mounted to a CNC controlled 6-axis machine and install the component into a vehicle without colliding with any part of the vehicle on the way in.

This is similar to picking up a drivers seat and installing it into a car from the passenger side door opening without hitting the door opening, the center console, the steering wheel, or the ceiling. This has nothing to do with cars, but this example is close to what we need to accomplish and I’ll stick with this example to describe what we need.

We have a model of the seat, and a model of the car, and a model of the machine we are designing . . . is there a way inside of CATIA V5 to guide the seat into position along a couple of guide curves and have CATIA spit out axis positions for the 6 degree of freedom machine? With all the components in the model, can it detect collisions?

We have done this in SolidWords with a macro and it worked great for a grinding application, but we are less familiar with CATIA and I want this to be fairly easy for the customer to take ownership of and create their own seat installation G-Code as models change in the future.

We do have a seat of CATIA V5 . . . will we need any additional feature licenses to do this?

A: This would be a trivial exercise if you used APT
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F: I could do this on my shaper in less than 5 minutes
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jhearons said:

A: This would be a trivial exercise if you used APT

Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of that but it probably would be. They used to use APT to describe the trajectories of subatomic particles, driving through motion's video game should be a cinch

Meanwhile, Pro/E has a piping module that does something similar to what he describes - it figures a path up over around and through physical obstacles, to place pipes. If Catia has a similar feature that might work. Most of those top-end programs have comparable capabilities.

This is probably not the answer you are looking for but I'll toss it out as a suggestion anyway.

Run a Craigslist ad for Catia help in the Savannah GA section. Gulf Stream has hundreds of Catia wizards there. They actually require all engineers, programmers, assemblers to have 5 days per month training with onsite Catia instructors. These people know Catia inside and out and are constantly doing contract work for local shops. You could get someone to sign an NDA and probably solve your problem in a few hours.

I went to a Gulfstream open house years ago and they had the suits and VR system to graphicly assemble components and I remember watching on the model screen it was spitting out the coordinates. Granted they probably don't have a VR suit at home but still could manage to create a path without a collision.