Five-axis path smoothing based on sliding convolution windows for CNC machining

Tiny linear toolpaths widely used in five-axis CNC machine tools only meet G0 continuity at the junctions of adjacent paths, the tangential and curvature discontinuities at the corners result in decelerations and fluctuations of machine tools. Although the corner smoothing for the three-axis tool path is relatively mature, the five-axis tool pose path smoothing is still difficult to plan due to the nonlinear motions of the rotational axes and the parameter synchronization between the tool center point (TCP) path and the tool orientation vector (TOV) path. Therefore, this paper aims to extend the smoothing scopes of previously presented mixed tiny path smoothing method based on sliding convolution windows for three-axis CNC machining (Zhang et al. in Journal of Manufacturing Process 102:685–699, [19]). Compared with the previous work, this paper converts the five-axis tool pose path into the tool position signal and tool orientation signal, and the interpolation points of the two path signals in the convolution window are directly processed on the basis of the synchronous motions of all axes. The original parameter synchronization relationship between the TCP path and the TOV path is still maintained. Besides, the smoothing error prediction model is constructed. The proposed five-axis path smoothing method has been integrated into a self-developed open-architecture CNC system and its effectiveness for the five-axis path optimization is validated via the simulation and experiment.