Implementation of an open-architecture control for cnc systems based on open-source electronics

Open control architectures have many advantages including increased computational resources and flexibility of reconfiguration of new manufacturing units. This paper proposes an open architecture for the control of CNC systems based on open source electronics. The software architecture in this paper is a component-based approach where each component has an independent finite state machine (FSM) model. The hardware architecture is a multiprocessor distributed controller, with different levels of processing, and adaptable for different hardware specifications. A discussion of the basic control algorithms, with examples of implementation to the open source platform Arduino, is presented as part of the methodology. Other results in this paper include the preliminary test of the control to a two-axis CNC stage and a mathematical model of the control-loop in Simulink. The architecture in this paper has the potential of transforming CNC in open source electronics from device-oriented systems to systems where users can design their controls for special purpose machines.Copyright © 2016 by ASME