TOOL PATH OPTIMIZATION FOR HOLE PATTERN MAKING ON PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS BY COMBINATION OF TSP AND ACO

Abstract

Multi-hole drilling is a typical pattern making process in which many holes are arranged in a certain pattern. In such a case, the non-productive time (or air-time) is very long in comparison to the productive (or cutting) one. Therefore, application of tool path optimization (TPO) to reduce the air-time is highly important. Literatures showed that applying Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) in combination with Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) to TPO exhibits superior performance. This study proposes a feasible TSP-ACO solution for printed circuit boards (PCBs), which consist of the most complicated hole patterns with very large number of holes that are non-uniformly arranged. Simulation shows that by using the proposed solution, the tool path is shortened by more than 6 times in comparison with the initial one.