An Algorithm of Machining Process Planning Based on Improved Ant Colony System

In order to enhance the competitiveness of manufacturing enterprises, this paper proposed a machining process planning method based on improved Ant Colony System. The concept of distance between process units was defined. Thus, the machining process planning transformed into the problem of searching optimum path. To address the shortcomings of ant colony system, low convergence speed and easy to traps into local optimization, an adaptive selection mechanism of pheromone evaporation factor was designed, so that the improved Ant Colony System can search optimal solution in the global with higher convergence speed. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed planning method was verified by simulation.