Development of the common human-machine interface for multi-axis machine tools

Multi-axis and multi-task machine tools have been the major development trends in recent machine tool industry. However, it is almost impossible To achieve efficient production and safety on multi-axis, multi-task machines tools without the help of on-line software systems, which is also known as the Human-machine interface (HMI). The biggest challenge for Taiwan machine tool industry to build HMI software is to deal with the complexity induced by programming interfaces and communication protocols provided by various commercial CNC controllers since it is common for a vendor to sell machine tools with the same configuration but with different controller to fulfill customer requirements. Various combinations of machine configurations and CNC controllers will dramatically increase the development and maintenance cost for HMI software development. To resolve the above difficulty, a Common Human-machine Interface (CHMI) software development platform is proposed and implemented as a unified development environment for customized HMI software. To demonstrate the benefits of the proposed CHMI platform, on-line collision avoidance and machining simulation software are also implemented based on the CHMI platform and tested with various machine tools. Implementation and test result shows that using the CHMI platform, vendors can develop customized HMI software without the complexities induced by various programming interfaces and communication protocols provided by various commercial CNC controllers, therefore the development and maintenance cost can be reduced.