The design of a single-chip tool monitoring system for on-line turning operation

Tool condition monitoring systems play an important role in a FMS system. By changing the worn tool before or just at the time it fails, the loss caused by defect product can be reduced greatly and thus product quality and reliability is improved. To achieve this, an on-line tool condition monitoring system using a single-chip microcomputer for detecting tool breakage during cutting process is discussed in this paper. Conventionally, PC-based monitoring systems are used in most research works. The major shortcoming of PC-based monitoring systems is the incurred cost. To reduce costs, the tool condition monitoring system was built with an Intel 8051 single-chip microprocessor and the design is described in this paper. The 8051 tool monitoring system uses a strain gauge for measuring cutting force; according to the force feature, the tool monitoring system can easily recognize the breakage of the cutting tool with its tool breakage algorithm. The experimental results show that the low-cost 8051 tool monitoring board can detect tool breakage in three successive products successfully.