From CAD Models to Knowledge Bases

This paper approaches the problem of integrating design and manufacturing. CAD systems used for the design should be more strongly connected to the object models needed in manufacturing and assembly processes. In this paper we limit our attention to the phases of manufacturing that require robots.Existing robot programming languages should be improved in many ways. New methods are necessary for programming sensor-based robots. Facilities for more efficient programming, off-line simulation, interaction with data bases should be provided. The available languages are poor at describing the robot environment and the robot tasks. Moreover they are usable by skilled programmers only.We will see how the off-line programming of robots requires models and how these models can be built. An evolution of the capabilities of CAD systems and object modeling systems, namely their integration into a general framework for design and manufacturing, is strongly desired.