Quintic Spline Interpolation With Minimal Feed Fluctuation

This paper presents a parameterization and an interpolation method for quintic splines, which result in a smooth and consistent feedrate profile. The discrepancy between the spline parameter and the actual arc length leads to undesirable feed fluctuations and discontinuity, which elicit themselves as high frequency acceleration and jerk harmonics, causing unwanted structural vibrations and excessive tracking error. Two different approaches are presented that alleviate this problem: The first approach is based on modifying the spline toolpath so that it is optimally parameterized with respect to its arc length. The second approach is based on scheduling the spline parameter to accurately yield the desired arc displacement (i.e. feedrate), either by approximation of the relationship between the arc length and the spline parameter with a feed correction polynomial, or by solving the spline parameter iteratively in real-time at each interpolation step. The two approaches are compared to nearly arc length parameterized C3 quintic spline interpolation in terms of feedrate consistency and experimental tracking accuracy.Copyright © 2003 by ASME