Axis Path Planning of Five-axis Surface Machining by optimizing Differential Vector of the axis movement considering tool posture limits

Abstract

Abstract Two rotating axes of the five-axis machine tools complicate the kinematics, which increases the difficulty of trajectory planning of five-axis CNC machining. In the process of machining a free-form surface with a ball-head cutter, the tool is required to follow the tool tip path of the surface and the restriction of tool orientation is only constrained within a certain range. This paper proposes a planning algorithm based on differential vector optimization for generating a smooth trajectory of each axis for five-axis machining. Firstly, the kinematic model of the five-axis CNC machine tool and the Jacobian matrix are built. Secondly, the optimization objectives combined with the smoothness optimization requirements and the limits of the tool axis vector are established. Then, the trajectory of the moving axis by integrating the optimized differential vector is generated. At last, a waveform surface is machined based on VERICUT software and a five-axis machine with the trajectory generated by the proposed method. To prove the feasibility and superiority of the method, a simulation based on VERICUT and no-load experiments are conducted in an A-C type five-axis CNC machine. The simulation and experiments verify the smoothness and optimal of the proposed path planning method.