STEP-NC interpreter for intelligent and open CNC

It is necessary for the STEP-NC controllers to interpret STEP-NC file directly in order to make use of high-level product manufacturing information. In this paper, a STEP-NC interpreter is proposed and implemented based on open CNC platform. Two interfaces named IInterpreter and ITaskGenerator are defined and encapsulated into COM modules by using C++. The mechanism for interpreting and executing STEP-NC file is built based on multi-thread and shared memory technology. A test part that contains 6 machining features is machined on the machine tool to demonstrate the function of STEP-NC interpreter. The experiment result indicates that the STEP-NC controller is able to interpret and execute STEP-NC files directly without compiling it to motion control commands.