A Feedrate Planning Method for the NURBS Curve in CNC Machining Based on the Critical Constraint Curve

• Main Authors: Peng Guo, Yijie Wu, Guang Yang, Zhebin Shen, Haorong Zhang, Peng Zhang, Fei Lou, Hengbo Li
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-05-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: NURBS; curvature; feedrate-constraint value; feedrate planning; acceleration/deceleration
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/11/4959

The curvature of the NURBS curve varies along its trajectory, therefore, the commonly used feedrate-planning method, which based on the acceleration/deceleration (Acc/Dec) model, is difficult to be directly applied in CNC machining of a NURBS curve. To address this problem, a feedrate-planning method based on the critical constraint curve of the feedrate (CCC) is proposed. Firstly, the problems of existing feedrate-planning methods and their causes are analyzed. Secondly, by considering both the curvature constraint and the kinematic constraint during the Acc/Dec process, the concept of CCC which represents the relationship between the critical feedrate-constraint value and the arc length is proposed. Then the CCC of a NURBS curve is constructed, and it has a concise expression conforming to the Acc/Dec model. Finally, a feedrate-planning method of a NURBS curve based on CCC and the Acc/Dec model is established. In the simulation, a comparison between the proposed method and the conventional feedrate-planning method is performed, and the results show that, the proposed method can reduce the Acc/Dec time by over 40%, while little computational burden being added. The machining experimental results validate the real-time performance and stability of the proposed method, and also the machining quality is verified. The proposed method offers an effective feedrate-planning strategy for a NURBS curve in CNC machining.