Cutter location point calculation for five-axis surface machining with ellipse cutter

This paper presents an approach of the cutter location (CL) point calculation for five-axis surface machining with elliptic generatrix cutter. Firstly, based on the cutter contact (CC) point and its normal vector in workpiece coordinate system, the normal vector of the CC point in local coordinate system of the cutter is figured out according to the geometric relations between two coordinate systems. Secondly, the geometric properties of ellipse are analysed to obtain the local coordinate CC point with local coordinate normal vector. Thirdly, the position relation between the CC point and the ellipse centre in local coordinate system is determined. And this position relation is transformed into workpiece coordinate system according to the geometric relations between two coordinate systems. Then, the centre of the ellipse in workpiece coordinate system is calculated by the position relation and the CL point is figured out according to the ellipse centre. Finally, an example of CL point calculation with this method is carried out which proves that the method is effective.