Tool orientation planning for five-axis CNC machining of open free-form surfaces

For the geometry characteristics of open free-form surfaces, it is hard to consider global interference during the planning of feasible domains. Therefore, the optimal kinematic orientation of tool axis will no longer be confined to the boundary of feasible domains. In this paper, according to the principle demanding that the tool should be fitted to a surface as close as possible and relevant processing parameters, a feasible domain of tool orientation for each cutter contact is planned in the local feed coordinates system. Then, these feasible domains of the tool orientation are transformed into the same coordinates system of the machine tool by the inverse kinematics transformation. The linear equations based feasible domain method and Rosen gradient projection algorithm are used to improve the optimization process in precision and efficiency of the algorithm. It constructs the variation of tool orientation optimization model and ensures the smoothness of tool orientation globally. Simulation and analysis of examples show that the proposed method has good kinematics performance and greatly improves the efficiency.