Implementation of MTConnect in Machine Monitoring System for CNCs

In current manufacturing shop floor, the diversity of CNCs' interfaces and communication protocols makes it extremely challenging for shop managers to collect the device data and monitor their states. To allow the existing machine tools to be easily connected and monitored by a "plug and play" way, this paper proposes a machine monitoring system for CNCs based on MTConnect, and describes the implementation of MTConnect protocol in the proposed system in detail. The implementation includes establishing information model for the CNCs according to MTConnect standard, collecting and processing data from CNCs by MTConnect Adapter, establishing communication with MTConnect Agent, and implementing data interaction operations between MTConnect Agent and monitoring application using MTConnect HTTP requests. Finally, the implemented system is illustrated with the CNC VMC-1060L in a realistic application, and the results show the practical feasibility of this MTConnect based system for CNCs monitoring.