A development of wire path searching module using extended RCA method

This study deals with a development of wire path searching module as a part of automotive wire harness design system. Wire path searching module manages the free space, finds transition locations, and creates bundle paths to dramatically reduce a tedious iterative routing process which results in easy optimization of the bundle paths. A prime policy in the system configuration is to compromise between man's and computer's ability, and make it possible a designer's leading role in designing process. Human input is indispensable to cope with the special cases which were not considered in the initial design stage of the system. In this study, we improve the previous shortest-path-finding algorithm(VGraph and RCA method) into a new method called Extended RCA. Bundles, connectors and transitions are handled as objects so one can manage and modify physical properties of the objects easily. Therefore a verification is allowed at any desired stage of design. The reuse of previous result is facilitated by using Dependency Structure, which represents the mutual relations among connectors, transitions, and bundles. Dependency Structure makes it possible the elimination of redundant calculating process, and consequently shorter routing time.