Methodology for Continuous Infeed Cylindrical Plunge Grinding

A method for optimal control of cylindrical plunge grinding cycles is introduced. Unlike conventional cycles which have a few pre-determined sequential steps with discrete infeed rates, the new method will continually vary the infeed velocity. The proposed method utilizes the Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach whereby the control action at each sampling instant is selected in accordance with its effect on the future values of process variables and part quality attributes. This paper describes the problem and presents some preliminary results. It also discusses the difficulties that will need to be overcome before the controller can be implemented on-line.