Author:

Keywords:

laser cutting, tool path, PCGTSP, RDMST, CIB_LPP, Science & Technology, Technology, Engineering, Industrial, Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations Research & Management Science, Engineering, RURAL POSTMAN PROBLEM, OPTIMIZATION, ALGORITHM, AIRTIME, SEARCH, Operations Research

Abstract:

This paper deals with generating cutting paths for laser cutting machines by representing a tool path in a novel way. Using the new representation, the tool path problem can be viewed as finding a partitioning of contours which minimizes the sum of the costs of a rooted directed minimum spanning tree to connect the partitions and the costs of a generalized traveling salesman problem (GTSP) solutions within each partition. Using Edmond-Liu's algorithm to solve the arborescence problem, an improved Lin-Kernighan heuristic to solve the GTSP and a heuristic repartitioning approach, tool paths can be generated that are 4.2\% faster than those generated by an existing tool path construction heuristic.