Jerk-limited feedrate scheduling and optimization for five-axis machining using new piecewise linear programming approach

In this paper, a new computation method and an optimization algorithm are presented for feedrate scheduling of five-axis machining in compliance with both machine drive limits and process limits. Five-axis machine tool with its ability of controlling tool orientation to follow the sculptured surface contour has been widely used in modern manufacturing industry. Feedrate scheduling serving as a kernel of CNC control system plays a critical role to ensure the required machining accuracy and reliability for five-axis machining. Due to the nonlinear coupling effects of all involved drive axes and the saturation limit of servo motors, the feedrate scheduling for multi-axis machining has long been recognized and remains as a critical challenge for achieving five-axis machine tools' full capacity and advantage. To solve the nonlinearity nature of the five-axis feedrate scheduling problems, a relaxation mathematical process is presented for relaxing both the drive motors' physical limitations and the kinematic constraints of five-axis tool motions. Based on the primary optimization variable of feedrate, the presented method analytically linearizes the machining-related constraints, in terms of the machines' axis velocities, axis accelerations and axis jerks. The nonlinear multi-constrained feedrate scheduling problem is transformed into a manageable linear programming problem. An optimization algorithm is presented to find the optimal feedrate scheduling solution for the five-axis machining problems. Both computer implementation and laboratorial experiment testing by actual machine cutting were conducted and presented in this paper. The experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively generate efficient feedrate scheduling for five-axis machining with constraints of the machine tool physical constraints and limits. Compared with other existing numerical methods, the proposed method is able to find an accurate analytical solution for the nonlinear constrained five-axis feedrate scheduling problems without compromising the efficiency of the machining processes.