Measuring orientation optimization for aircraft structural parts inspection with coordinate measuring machines

Using coordinate measuring machines to inspect aircraft structural parts needs to choose a measuring orientation of the probe for each measuring point, and the total number of measuring orientations used for measuring all measuring points must be minimum. A method of measuring orientation optimization based on clustering and improved simulated annealing algorithm was proposed. Firstly, measuring points with common accessible orientations were clustered by the clustering algorithm in order to reduce the scale of the problem and increase the probability of finding the global best result with simulated annealing algorithm. Then, an improved simulated annealing algorithm was employed to search for the minimum measuring orientations used for measuring all measuring points. Testing results show that this method is capable of finding much less measuring orientations.