A Binary Particle Swarm Optimization Approach for Routing in PCB Holes Drilling Process

Abstract

PCB holes drilling process is one of the manufacturing process in making a printed circuit board. Normally, the route chosen is dictated by numerical controlled drill files. These files are generated through computer aided design software, which does not carefully consider route optimization. This might lead to inefficiency of the holes drilling process as the robotic drilling machine might travel a longer distance in order to complete its task. Hence, the objective of this paper to model a binary particle swarm optimization algorithm purposely to search for an optimized route in PCB holes drilling route problems. In binary particle swarm optimization, each particle represents a possible route for the drill bit to travel for. By evaluating the distance of the route of the particle represented, each particle can compare and replicates its performance with its personal best record and the swarms best record. A case study from other literature has been taken to measure the performance of the proposed model. The result indicated that the proposed model is better with standard particle swarm optimization.