Time-optimal Feedrate Scheduling with Actuator Constraints for 5-axis Machining

Cycle time minimization is one of the major goals that many manufacturers are eager to achieve. Maximizing feedrate is the direct solution, however, physical motions need to be under the specified motion limits to avoid high-frequency vibration, causing machining error. In this paper, a time-optimal feedrate scheduling approach for 5-axis G1 toolpath is presented for 5-axis machining. A quintic B-spline corner smoothing method is utilized to smoothen sharp corners in the toolpath. Then, the S-shape feedrate profile of each block is optimized under the actuator motion constraints, with the objective of minimizing the cycle time. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is used to provide the optimized solution. Experiments are conducted to validate the proposed approach and the results are compared with two other existing approaches. It is found that the proposed method can achieve shorter cycle time and less contour errors, showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach.