Generation of kinematic smooth tool-paths in 5-axis milling of sculptured surfaces

This paper addresses the issues of tool-path smoothness and tool-path length (machining efficiency) in the generation of cutter location (CL) paths of 5-axis point milling of sculptured surfaces. In the proposed method, the joint movement between two neighbouring CLs in the machine frame is used to measure the tool-path smoothness and the cutting strip-width to measure tool-path length. In order to generate tool-paths with satisfactory smoothness and good efficiency, two approaches are proposed: 1) a fast repairing approach that modifies CL segments with drastic joint movement; 2) a holistic optimisation approach that considers both objectives simultaneously. For both approaches, corresponding algorithms based on evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have been developed to search for the best posture sequence for the CLs on each path. A case study is presented to show the performance comparison between the two approaches. [Received 18 August 14; Revised 30 April 5; Accepted 18 May 2015]