Measurement of Tool Wear using Machine Vision in Flat End-mill

End milling is available for machining the various shape of products and has been widely applied in many manufacturing industries. The quality of products depends on a machine tool performance and machining conditions. Recognition characteristics of the cutting condition is becoming a critical requirement for improving the utilization and flexibility of present-day CNC machine tools. The measurement of tool wear would be performed by coordinate-measuring machine(CMM). However, the usage of CMM requires much time and cost. In order to overcome the difficulties, on-line measurement(OLM) system was applied for a tool wear measurement. This study shows a reliable technique for the reduction of machining error components by developing a system using a CCD camera and machine vision to be able to precisely measure the size of tool wear in flat end milling for CNC machining. The CCD camera and machine vision attached to a CNC machine can determine tool wear quickly and easily.