Tolerance Analysis With Polytopes in HV-Description

This article proposes the use of polytopes in $HV$-description to solve tolerance analysis problems. Polytopes are defined by a finite set of half-spaces representing geometric, contact, or functional specifications. However, the list of the vertices of the polytopes is useful for computing other operations as Minkowski sums. Then, this paper proposes a truncation algorithm to obtain the $V$-description of polytopes in $ℝn$ from its $H$-description. It is detailed how intersections of polytopes can be calculated by means of the truncation algorithm. Minkowski sums as well can be computed using this algorithm making use of the duality property of polytopes. Therefore, a Minkowski sum can be calculated intersecting some half-spaces in the dual space. Finally, the approach based on $HV$-polytopes is illustrated by the tolerance analysis of a real industrial case using the open source software politocat and politopix.