Abstract
Modern machine tools cannot presently machine all the desired geometries modeled by designers. These geometries include free-formed surfaces represented by Bezier, Tensor Product, NURBS, and the like. When these free-formed surfaces are executed on the production floor, they are approximated with straight lines, circles, and in some advanced manufacturing facilities, cubic B-Splines.
The work described in this paper provides a machine path interpolator that can traverse complicated free-formed paths represented by NURBS. This NURBS interpolator is implemented on a three axis milling machine with an industrial quality Open Architecture Controller. The system is called MOSAIC-PC (Machine-tool Open System Advanced Intelligent Controller: PC platform).
