&ldquo / Numerically Controlled&rdquo / (NC) machine tools, which are automatically operated by encoded (digital) commands, are capable of machining components with quality and quantity. Manufacturing industry heavily depends on these machines. Many different control architectures have been adapted in today&rsquo / s CNC technology. Centralized control system is quite popular in industry due to its ease of implementation. If the number of controlled axes on a CNC machine tool (> / 3), increases so does the computational burden on the central processors. Hence, more powerful processors are needed. An alternative architecture, which is not commonly used in CNC technology, is the decentralized (distributed) control. In this topology, the tasks handled by the distributed controllers that are interconnected to each other by a communication network. As the need arises, a new controller can be added easily to the network without augmenting the physical configuration. Despite its attractive features, this architecture has not been fully embraced by the CNC industry. Synchronization among the axes in the coordinated motion is proven to be quite challenging.
In this thesis, alternative distributed controller architecture was proposed for CNC machine tools. It was implemented on a 3-axis CNC milling machine. Open-loop control performance was investigated under various conditions. Different communication protocols along with different physical communication interfaces and a number of controller hardware were devised. An industry-standard network (RS-485) was set up by interconnecting these distributed controllers. Different data transmission protocols were devised in order to establish appropriate communication methods. Also, computer software (a.k.a. graphical user interface), which can coordinate the interconnected controllers, interpret NC part programs and generate reference position data for each axis, was designed within the scope of this thesis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12610599/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 June 2009 |
| Creators | Kanburoglu, Furkan A. |
| Contributors | Dolen, Melik |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for METU campus |
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