Proper fixture design is crucial to obtain the better product quality according to the design specification during the workpiece fabrication. Locator layout planning is one of the most important tasks in the fixture design process. However, the design of a fixture relies heavily on the designerts expertise and experience up to now. Therefore, a new approach to loeator layout determination for workpieces with arbitrary complex surfaces is pro- posed for the first time. Firstly, based on the fuzzy judgment method, the proper locating reference and locator - numbers are determined with consideration of surface type, surface area and position tolerance. Secondly, the lo- cator positions are optimized by genetic algorithm（GA）. Finally, a typical example shows that the approach is su- perior to the experiential method and can improve positioning accuracy effectively.
