Intelligent Machining Systems

Machining is one of the most widespread manufacturing processes and plays a critical role in industries. As a matter of fact, machine tools are often called mother machines as they are used to produce other machines and production plants. The continuous development of innovative materials and the increasing competitiveness are two of the challenges that nowadays manufacturing industries have to cope with. The increasing attention to environmental issues and the rising costs of raw materials drive the development of machining systems able to continuously monitor the ongoing process, identify eventual arising problems and adopt appropriate countermeasures to resolve or prevent these issues, leading to an overall optimization of the process. This work presents the development of intelligent machining systems based on in-process monitoring which can be implemented on production machines in order to enhance their performances. Therefore, some cases of monitoring systems developed in different fields, and for different applications, are presented in order to demonstrate the functions which can be enabled by the adoption of these systems. Design and realization of an advanced experimental machining testbed is presented in order to give an example of a machine tool retrofit aimed to enable advanced monitoring and control solutions. Finally, the implementation of a data-driven simulation of the machining process is presented. The modelling and simulation phases are presented and discussed. So, the model is applied to data collected during an experimental campaign in order to tune it. The opportunities enabled by integrating monitoring systems with simulation are presented with preliminary studies on the development of two virtual sensors for the material conformance and cutting parameter estimation during machining processes

Rotary-linear axes for high speed machining

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (p. 353-358).This thesis presents the design, analysis, fabrication, and control of a rotary-linear axis; this axis is a key subsystem for high speed, 5-axis machine tools intended for fabricating centimeter-scale parts. The rotary-linear axis is a cylinder driven independently in rotation and translation. This hybridization minimizes machine inertias and thereby maximizes accelerations allowing for the production of parts with complex surfaces rapidly and accurately. Such parts might include dental restorations, molds, dies, and turbine blades. The hybrid rotary and linear motion provides special challenges for precision actuation and sensing. Our prototype rotary-linear axis consists of a central shaft, 3/4 inch (1.91 cm) in diameter and 15 inches (38.10 cm) long, supported by two cylindrical air bearings. The axis has one inch (2.54 cm) of linear travel and unlimited rotary travel. Two frameless permanent magnet motors respectively provide up to 41 N continuous force and 0.45 N-m continuous torque. The rotary motor is composed of commercially available parts; the tubular linear motor is completely custom-built. The prototype axis achieves a linear acceleration of 3 g's and a rotary acceleration of 1,300 rad/s2. With higher power current amplifiers and reduced sensor inertia, we predict the axis could attain peak accelerations of 12 g's and 17,500 rad/s2 at low duty cycles. This thesis also examines several concepts for developing a precision rotary-linear sensor that can tolerate axial translation.Our prototype rotary sensor uses two laser interferometers to measure the orientation of a slightly tilted mirror attached to the shaft. A third interferometer measures shaft translation. The rotary axis has a control bandwidth of 40 Hz; the linear axis has a bandwidth of 70 Hz. The rotary-linear axis has 2.5 nm rms linear positioning noise and 3.1 prad rms rotary positioning noise. This thesis presents one novel 5-axis machine topology which uses two rotary-linear axes. The first axis rotates and translates the part. The second axis carries the cutting tool and provides high speed spindle rotation as well as infeed along the axis of rotation. For use as a spindle, precision rotary sensing is not required, and a sensorless control scheme based on motor currents and voltages can be used.by Michael Kevin Leibman.Ph.D

Advanced Mobile Robotics: Volume 3

Mobile robotics is a challenging field with great potential. It covers disciplines including electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, cognitive science, and social science. It is essential to the design of automated robots, in combination with artificial intelligence, vision, and sensor technologies. Mobile robots are widely used for surveillance, guidance, transportation and entertainment tasks, as well as medical applications. This Special Issue intends to concentrate on recent developments concerning mobile robots and the research surrounding them to enhance studies on the fundamental problems observed in the robots. Various multidisciplinary approaches and integrative contributions including navigation, learning and adaptation, networked system, biologically inspired robots and cognitive methods are welcome contributions to this Special Issue, both from a research and an application perspective

Vibration, Control and Stability of Dynamical Systems

From Preface: This is the fourteenth time when the conference “Dynamical Systems: Theory and Applications” gathers a numerous group of outstanding scientists and engineers, who deal with widely understood problems of theoretical and applied dynamics. Organization of the conference would not have been possible without a great effort of the staff of the Department of Automation, Biomechanics and Mechatronics. The patronage over the conference has been taken by the Committee of Mechanics of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland. It is a great pleasure that our invitation has been accepted by recording in the history of our conference number of people, including good colleagues and friends as well as a large group of researchers and scientists, who decided to participate in the conference for the first time. With proud and satisfaction we welcomed over 180 persons from 31 countries all over the world. They decided to share the results of their research and many years experiences in a discipline of dynamical systems by submitting many very interesting papers. This year, the DSTA Conference Proceedings were split into three volumes entitled “Dynamical Systems” with respective subtitles: Vibration, Control and Stability of Dynamical Systems; Mathematical and Numerical Aspects of Dynamical System Analysis and Engineering Dynamics and Life Sciences. Additionally, there will be also published two volumes of Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistics entitled “Dynamical Systems in Theoretical Perspective” and “Dynamical Systems in Applications”

Actas de las XXXIV Jornadas de Automática

Postprint (published version