Free-form surface inspection path planning using improved ant colony optimisation algorithm

Abstract

Abstract To improve the inspection efficiency of free-form surfaces using coordinate measuring machines (CMMs), this paper proposes a free-form CMM inspection path optimization method based on an improved ant colony optimisation algorithm. The inspection path composition and its mathematical model are first analysed, and then the improved ant colony optimisation algorithm is applied to minimize the objective function. To address the problem that the ant colony optimisation algorithm has difficulty jumping out of local optimal solutions, this paper introduces a negative feedback mechanism in the pheromone update rule to improve the probability of the ant colony optimisation algorithm jumping out of the local optimal solution, so as to obtain the global optimal solution with a higher probability. Experiments showed that the inspection path length optimised by the improved ant colony optimisation algorithm was at least 5.2% and 8.6% shorter than those of the traditional ant colony optimisation and simulated annealing algorithms, respectively.