Tolerances play an important role in determining the quality, cost, and time to market, of manufactured products. Current tolerancing methods are labor intensive, and error prone. Research is directed to the development of the theoretical foundations necessary for the automated computer solution of tolerancing problems, based on product design specifications derived from traditional computer-aided design systems. Some of the specific sub-problems being addressed are: the development of a mathematical theory of tolerances that provides a useful algorithmic interpretation of each of the geometric and plus-minus tolerances used in current design practice; the development of assembly models that capture the semantics of mating feature relationships; the extension of automated tolerancing capabilities to conceptual design; and the development of strategies for computational geometry that are robust in the presence of small simulated manufacturing variations.
