Feature-Driven Design of Reconfigurable Machine Tool Configurations

Reconfigurable machine tools (RMT) are crucial for the realization of reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS). Hence, the intelligentization of the manufacturing sector hinges on the reconfigurability of RMTs, and the key to achieving RMT reconfigurability lies in the formulation of an effective approach for the design and selection of RMT configurations. In this work, a modular approach to RMT design and configuration selection was proposed to address the problems of RMT configuration design. A detailed study was performed on the fundamental theoretical aspects and key technologies that concern RMT design, which include machining targets, module selection, configuration expressions and configuration selection. The proposed method may be summarized as follows: first, operation identification, planning and merging are performed according to the machining target’s features. Based on the known operations, the functions and structures required for RMT are determined and subsequently mapped to a series of mechanical modules and RMT configurations. Based on the generated RMT configurations, feasible candidate solutions are selected according to a number of key metrics. Finally, a preference ranking algorithm is used to rank the candidate solutions and select the most appropriate configuration.