STEP-NC based high-level machining simulations integrated with CAD/CAPP/CAM

With the development of manufacturing, numerical control (NC) machining simulation has become a modern tool to obtain safe and reliable machining operations. Although some research and commercial software about NC machining simulations is available, most of them is oriented for G&M code. It is a low-level data model for computer numerical control (CNC), which has inherent drawbacks such as incomplete data and lack of accuracy. These limitations hinder the development of a real simulation system. Whereas, standard for the exchange of product data-compliant numerical control (STEP-NC) is a new and high-level data model for CNC. It provides rich information for CNC machine tools, which creates the condition for an informative and real simulation. Therefore, this paper proposes STEP-NC based high-level NC machining simulations solution integrated with computer-aided design/computer-aided process planning/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAPP/CAM). It turned out that the research provides a better informed simulation environment and promotes the development of modern manufacturing. © 2012 Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.