A universal virtual manufacturing system for cutting machines

A virtual manufacturing (VM) system plays an important role before machining in reality. The VM systems currently used in CNC field are mainly for typical machine tools, whereas the development of using an industrial robot for cutting task has extended the cutting machine into a more generalized application. However, the current VM system is insufficient to fulfill the demand of different mechanical structures and uniform machine tools and cutting robots. This paper presents a universal 3D simulation system for machine tools and cutting robots with different mechanical structures. All machine tools and cutting robots are synthesized as cutting machines. Robotics methodologies like D-H (Denavit-Hartenberg) convention, forward and inverse kinematics; CNC functionalities such as CL-data interpreter, various interpolation manners, are combined as the core of the system. Serial and parallel structured machine tools and cutting robots are simulated as typical case studies. The results show a great uniformity of the system to different mechanical structures.