AbstractIt is most difficult to introduce a disruptive method of control that could radically improve manufacturing efficiency when it would change, even eliminate, conventional manufacturing practices. Nevertheless, this paper introduces such a method to the research community for direct control of a mechanism by an application like CAD/CAM. Called RMAC for Reconfigurable Mechanism for Application Control (RMAC) [1], RMAC has been developed and tested at Brigham Young University as a logical extension of the direct control of mechanisms. Its architectural precursor, direct control, is now in commercial form, and being applied to modern manufacturing applications.The dynamic reconfigurable control architecture described in this paper allows a single mechanism to be controlled by a variety of applications and control laws, changing its control and kinematics characteristics according to the application demands. RMAC uses a software, rather than hardware-based, paradigm that assigns a device driver to a mec...
[1]
W. Sperling,et al.
OSACA-the vendor neutral Control Architecture
,
1997
.
[2]
Wei Li,et al.
A Direct Machining System for Commercial CAD/CAM Packages
,
2004
.
[3]
S. Schofield,et al.
Open Architecture Controllers for Machine Tools, Part 1: Design Principles
,
1998
.
[4]
Tyler Davis,et al.
Dynamic Reconfigurable Machine Tool Controller
,
2004
.
[5]
Yoram Koren,et al.
Reconfigurable machine tools
,
2001
.
[6]
Suk-Hwan Suh,et al.
Developing an integrated STEP-compliant CNC prototype
,
2002
.
[7]
Wei Li,et al.
Reconfigurable Mechanisms for Application Control (RMAC): Applications
,
2007
.
[8]
Mikel Zatarain,et al.
Modular Synthesis of Machine Tools
,
1998
.
[9]
Tyler Davis,et al.
Rapid and Flexible Prototyping Through Direct Machining
,
2004
.
[10]
C. Greg Jensen,et al.
Flexible in-process inspection through direct control
,
2006
.