Development Of A WEDM-CNC System Based On ARM And Embedded Linux

Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM) is a high-precision andhighly flexible machining process, and has been widely used in the mold and diemanufacturing, profiled cutting tool, difficult to cut materials and precisionmachining of complex parts, and so forth. Computer Numerical Control (CNC)system is a key device for CNC machine tools. It is of great practical importanceto develop a low-cost, high efficiency open WEDM-CNC system.This thesis proposes an implementation method of developing a CNCsystem for reciprocating feed WEDM, which based on embedded Linux systemand ARM hardware environment. The solution applies the ARM microprocessor+ AVR MCU interface circuitry as its hardware platform.Corperating with the advantages of the new GNU/Linux kernel of version2.6, and the new GUI solution—QtopiaCore 4, a cross compiling environment isconstracted. On this basis, a prototype of reciprocating feed WEDM-CNCsoftware with GUI is implemented. An interface between the CNC system andthe WEDM machine tool is developed with a MCU, and its control program isdeveloped with C programming language. Stepper motors which drive the X-Yworktable according to the output of CNC interpolation.Finally, the test bed of the developed CNC system is built, and the CNCsystem software is tested. Some sample parts are machined. The test andmachining results show that the proposed WEDM-CNC developing platformcoperated with ARM and embedded Linux is a feasible solution. The tests alsodemostrate the predefined functionalities of the WEDM-CNC system.