Developing a postprocessor for three types of five-axis machine tools

This paper presents a postprocessor capable of converting cutter location (CL) data to machine control data for three typical five-axis machine tools to establish an interface between computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) systems and numerically controlled (NC) machines. The analytical equations for NC data are obtained using the homogeneous coordinate transformation matrix and inverse kinematics. In addition, the developed postprocessor method is implemented through a trial-cut on a five-axis machine and verified on the coordinate measurement machine. Experimental results confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed postprocessor method which can be used to integrate the various five-axis machine tools employed in manufacturing systems.