Over the recent years, the evolution of such concepts as condition monitoring and adaptive control have been substantial. Condition monitoring, as the name implies, watched the relationship between theoretical and actual speeds and feeds, making preprogrammed or set adjustments, as needed. Adaptive control was the next iteration, as the CNC could detect subtle differences in tool and workpiece conditions and adjust the cutting “on the fly” as the cycle proceeded.
In the advanced world of highly complex, non-linear shapes found in the aerospace and especially the medical/ortho markets, the transformation orientation concept took the computation of the cutting path to a whole new level, basing it on the tooltip relationship to the workpiece, combined with a look-ahead function. Additional sensing hardware and probes were required and are still today.
