Automatic selection of cutter orientation for preventing the collision problem on a five-axis machining

The rotation joints of a five-axis machine tool can offer freedom and appropriate rotation to prevent interference problem between workpiece and the cutter. However, to a five-axis machine tool, it is quite difficult to determine the collision-free cutter orientation. Over this problem, a two-stage cutting tool collision check method is proposed to prevent the collision problem during the cutting process on a five-axis machine tool. The proposed method is capable of determining the collision free ball-end cutter orientation automatically. The first stage is to obtain the tilting and collision-free angle range in the plane that is normal to the tool path obtained. Next, a checking cone generated from this collision-free tool axis range is used for the second collision check. The collision region is formed by the intersection of the neighboring surfaces. This implies a collision-free yaw angle range. The final cutting tool orientation is determined automatically by referring the original spindle axis and the least angular variation from the spindle axis. Finally, the implementation issue is discussed with example.