Contouring error control for high-speed and high-precision five-axis CNC machine tools

In the five-axis high speed machining process, tool center point error and contouring error impact the quality of the workpiece surface. However, very few efforts have been made so far to simultaneously reduce the contouring errors and increase the speed. To this end, a model predictive control method is developed here. More precisely, the synchronization error is used to approximate the contouring error, which is defined as differential position errors between each axis and its two adjacent axes. A quadratic optimization algorithm which include tracking error, contouring error and cutting speed is afterwards derived. Finally, the proposed method is examined by a simulation.