Abstract: An ant colony algorithm was constructed to search the best optical assembly sequence rapidly in an assembly sequence planning. An assembly model for expressing the touching and preferential relationship among the assembly parts effectively was built by using directed assembly graph. On the basis of discussing the form and property of the assembly interference matrix,a concept of integrated interference matrix and its transformational methods was proposed.The integrated interference matrix and the tool list matrix can express the basic assembling information fully. The derivation of assembly feasible direction calculation based on the integrated interference matrix, the state transition probability of assembly parts,and the update rules of algorithm information were analyzed simultaneously. According to the changing frequency of feasible direction and the changing time of the assembly tools, the optimized functions for ant colony algorithm were then established and two examples were also proposed to prove the practicability of the algorithm.

Key words: Ant colony algorithm, Assembly sequence planning, Directed assembly graph, Integrated interference matrix