Comprehensive servo control strategies for flexible and high-efficient wire electric discharge machining. A systematic review

The increasing adoption of exotic and hard to cut materials in high-end applications makes electric discharge machining (EDM) process more relevant than ever. In particular, wire EDM variant (WEDM) deserves attention due to its ability to cut the workpiece's surroundings without completely evaporating the unused portion of the rare and expensive exotic materials. However, WEDM is a stochastic process that still lacks complete mathematical models and is driven by a myriad of parameters that will make its control a complex task. In WEDM, whenever the wire is fed too fast, the process will be interrupted not only by short circuits, but the wire electrode is most likely to break, jeopardising process efficiency in many ways. Currently, most of the literature has focused efficiency efforts in proposing a trade-off among parameters without a complete correlation with servo and control strategies. Therefore, this review aims to find and analyse the state-of-the-art approaches for controlling the Wire EDM process. A systematic literature review is conducted to identify and provide an adequate understanding of the best control strategies, fundamental parameters, and role. With no previous studies found, the present review focuses exclusively on servo control. First, it provides a comprehensive literature framework covering four decades, to next glimpse future developments of WEDM control strategies. Potential adoption of the findings can result in a deeper understanding of control variables and a broader and more efficient concept for WEDM servo feed control.