Abstract
This paper describes a new contact searching method using a hierarchical neural network. Generally, contact searching process consists of two phases : a global searching phase for finding nearest node-segment pair and a local searching phase for finding exact local coordinates of the contact point in the segment found. In the present method, a hierarchical neural network is utilized for finding the local coordinates of the contact point in the local searching phase. In this paper, the fundamental formulation of the neuro-based local contact searching method is described in detail and basic performance of the method is demonstrated through sample analyses.
