9632986 Srinivasan This GOALI/Faculty and Graduate Student Internship award will investigate control and design approaches that can achieve contouring errors of less than 20 microns at machine tool feed rates of 10-20 m/s. The technical approach will use control algorithms that make effective use of machine dynamic models and two stage actuation concepts: short range-high bandwidth and long range-lower bandwidth actuators. These approaches are necessary and the performance results are possible with the six degree of freedom parallel link machines based on the Stewart platform machine tool designs introduced in recent years. This project will be carried out by a team of researchers at Ohio State University, the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) and Ingersoll Milling Machine Company. It will support the faculty principal investigator and a graduate student as they experimentally determine dynamic parameters of Ingersoll's version of the Stewart platform machine tool at NIST. The research team will design a controller using this dynamic information and the two stage actuation concept, followed by experimental implementation at both NIST and Ingerqoll to evaluate performance. The technical impact of this research will be greater productivity in the manufacture of dies and molds through a combination of new structural designs integrated with new control concepts. Because of the three way partnership established between a university, national lab, and industrial firm, this project offers an ideal model for technology transfer.
