An optimal cable layout method considering maintenance accessibility for aviation equipment

Cable layout is an important part in the design of aviation equipment. Most of the cables are set within the narrow space of fuselage, the electrical environment and the spatial structure are complex, however, the traditional design process mainly focus on the physical properties of the cable itself without taking the maintainability especially the accessibility into consideration. In order to solve this problem, we first put forwards a cable layout design optimization model by converting basic constraints to weights of points in space through taking pretreatment (layering, rasterizing, digitalizing) in wiring space and confirming quantitative constraint conditions of accessibility based on visual cone volume of maintenance point and collisionless space volume. Then in the solving of the model, an improved A * algorithm is adopted and an optimized path of the cable is figured out. We use DELMIA to carry out 3D modeling to achieve the cable layout design and optimized the layout result based on its accessibility analysis module. In the end, we make a case study on cable layout optimization of an equipment compartment and verify the feasibility of the method, at the same time, propose a new and practicable optimization method for the design work of cable layout for aviation equipment.