NUMERICAL CONTROL APPARATUS

Abstract: A numerical control device includes two or more control portions (3) for controlling a plurality of objects (2) including objects of a first type (7) each having a shaft to be controlled in response to a control instruction and objects of a second type (8) each having a member other than a shaft to be controlled in response to an auxiliary control instruction (i), the numerical control device reads the control instructions block by block and each of the control instructions is prepared as a machining program. It is possible to control one or more of various objects which are to be operated simultaneously, independently, or together by means of a single numerical control device. This results in high productivity.

Description: The present invention relates to a numerical control apparatus for controlling an operation of a machine tool. US-A-4631684 describes a machine tool with multiple spindles and tool supports operable independently and simultaneously under independent working programs which is provided with a tool support synchronising system to produce synchronised operation of plural tool supports. Each program includes special synchronising commands to which control circuits are responsive to synchronise the operation of the machine tool. Other conventional numerical control devices will be described in detail subsequently with reference to the accompanying drawings. Typically they include two or more control portions for controlling a plurality of axes in response to control instructions and members other than axes in response to auxiliary control instructions, the numerical control apparatus reading the control instructions block by block, each control portion including an instruction decoder circuit, an axis control circuit and an auxiliary instruction control circuit. According to this invention such a numerical control apparatus includes a control instruction allocation circuit for checking, one by one, which of the axes and members exists, and responding to a control instruction for one of the axes or a member which does exist by allocating the control instructions arbitrarily to one of the control portions for controlling the selected axes and or members simultaneously and independently from the remainder, each of the control portions including means for selectively controlling its axis and its member other than an axis. Thus the present invention provides a numerical control apparatus capable of performing an arbitrary number of auxiliary instruction controls independently from others and of controlling any number of axes and members which can be controlled independently from one another. Preferably each control portion includes a discrimination circuit adapted to judge whether the output of the instruction decoder circuit is an axis control instruction or an auxiliary control instruction, upon which it decides whether an axis control or auxiliary instruction control is performed. The control instructions allocation circuit functions as a centre portion for determining which one of the control portions is to process the control instruction. A particular embodiment in accordance with this invention will now be described and contrasted with the prior art with reference to the accompanying drawings; in which Figure 1 shows a construction of a numerical control apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 2 is a flow chart showing an operation of a control instruction allocation circuit; Figure 3 is a flow chart showing an operation of a axis/auxiliary instruction control circuit; Figure 4 is a time chart of controls of auxiliary instructions 1 and 2; Figures 5 and 6 show constructions of typical examples of a conventional numerical control apparatus respectively; and Figure 7 is a time chart showing a control to be performed in the apparatus shown in Figure 5. Typical examples of a conventional numerical control (NC) apparatus are shown in Figs. 5 and 6. In Fig. 5, control objects to be controlled by a single control instruction are a shaft control and two MST controls and, in Fig. 6, control objects to be controlled by two control instructions are two shaft controls and two MST controls. In Fig. 5, 1a depicts the control instruction for the control objects 2, 3 a numerical control device responsive to the control instruction for controlling the control objects, 4 an instruction decoder, 5 a shaft control circuit responsive to a portion of the instruction concerning to a shift of a shaft for controlling a shift of the shaft, 6 an auxiliary instruction control circuit for controlling an auxiliary instruction M, a main shaft instruction S and a tool instruction T, etc., 7a a control object to be shaft controlled by the shaft control circuit and 8a and 8b independently movable objects to be controlled by the auxiliary instruction control circuit. Each control instruction i for controlling objects is prepared as a machining program and is decoded block by block by the instruction decoder circuit 4 to perform a numerical computation so that data of the ax is control instruction and auxiliary instructions (MST instructions) which have no relation to the axis control are obtained. In the axis control circuit 5, an interpolation and pulse distribution are performed on the basis of respective axis movement data, speed data and data of the kind of interpolation among instruction data of the axis control to drive a servo motor through a drive amplifier to thereby control the axis control objects 7a. The auxiliary instruction data are processed individually in the auxiliary instruction control circuit 6 on the basis of the data of the M instruction, the S instruction and the T instruction and control the auxiliary instruction control objects (8a) and (8b) through mechanical input/output interface. It should be noted that, only after the axis control and the auxiliary instruction control of a whole block are completed, can the control of a subsequent block be started. Fig. 7 is a time chart showing this control. In Fig. 7, M10, M11 and M12 of the auxiliary instruction 1 and M21 and M22 of the auxiliary instruction 2 can be executed individually. However, when they are instructed in the same block, a next block can not be executed unless the auxiliary instructions 1 and 2 are completed. Therefore, an execution of a block N3 can not be done unless the M11 instruction is completea even if the M21 instruction has already been completed. In Fig. 6 in which components depicted by same reference numerals as those used in Fig. 5 are identical to the components in Fig. 5, respectively, a numerical control apparatus 3 includes a pair of control portions 3a and 3b which are responsive to mutually independent control instructions 1a and 1b, respectively. Each control portion comprises an instruction decoder circuit 4, an axis control circuit 5 and an auxiliary instruction control circuit 6, which are identical to those components 4, 5 and 6 of the numerical control apparatus shown in Fig. 5 and operate similarly. The control portion 3a controls an axis control object 7a and an auxiliary instruction control object 8a and the control portion 3b controls an axis control object 7b and an auxiliary instruction control object 8b. In this construction, two pairs of the axis and the auxiliary instruction can be controlled separately. However, the control portion 3b can not control the auxiliary instruction alone. When it is desired to operate either of the control portion, it is necessary to modify it such that it functions like the apparatus shown in Fig. 5. In either the apparatus shown in Fig. 5 or that shown in Fig. 6, it is impossible to control two or more auxiliary instructions independently from others, resulting in an increase of execution time. Such control may be possible in a device having two or more control portions, only when there is an object to be axis-controlled. Further, when it is desired to add an object which is to be controlled independently from others, it is necessary to modify the construction of the control device itself completely. This means that a flexibility of the control device for change of the control object is very low. In Fig. 1 an embodiment of the present invention comprises an object portion 2 including a plurality of objects 7a, 7b ..7n, 8a, 8b ..8n and a numerical control device 3 including a plurality of control portions 3a, 3b, ...3n and a control instruction allocation circuit 9 having inputs 1a, 1b,..,1n to which control instructions 1, 2, ..,n are supplied. Each control portion includes an instruction decoder circuit 4 having an input connected to an output of the control instruction allocation circuit 9, a shaft/auxiliary control discrimination circuit 10 having an input connected to the instruction decoder circuit 9, a shaft control circuit 5 and an auxiliary instruction control circuit 6. An output of the shaft/auxiliary control circuit 10 is connected to inputs of the shaft control circuit 5 and the auxiliary instruction control circuit 6. The shaft/auxiliary instruction discrimination circuit 10 receives a decoded instruction from the instruction decoder 4 and functions to determine whether the instruction is a shaft control instruction or an auxiliary instruction and to feed it to the shaft control circuit 5 when it is the shaft control instrucion or to the auxiliary instruction control circuit 6 when it is the auxiliary instruction. The auxiliary instruction may include the auxiliary instruction M, a main shaft instruction S and a tool instruction T, etc. The shaft control circuit 5 is connected to a member to be shaft-controlled and the auxiliary instruction control circuit 6 is connected to a member to be controlled by the auxiliary instruction. In operation, the control instruction 1 for the members 7a and 8a to be controlled is prepared as a discrete machining program. This is true for each of other control instructions 2,..,n. The numerical control device receives at least one of these control instructions which is processed by the control instruction allocation circuit 9. The control instruction allocation circuit 9 decides the control portion or portions which process one or more of such control instructions and allocates the latter to the decided control portion or portions. When the objects to be controlled are only the objects 7a and 8a, the control portion 3a is adapted to receive only the control instruction 1a and executes it. When there are all of the control instructions 1 to n, the circuit 9 allocates them to the control portions 3a, 3b,..,3n, respectively. The objects to be controlled are not always successive. That is, the allocation circuit 9 checks on existence of object one by one and, if there is any, it responds toa control instruction related thereto to actuate a corresponding control portion. The instruction decoder 4 of the control portion or portions actuated by the allocation circuit 9 decodes the corresponding machining program of the control instruction block by block to perform a numerical calculation. A result of calculation is classified into data concerning to shift of a shaft and data concerning to auxiliary instruction (MST instruction) which has no relation to the shaft control. Such data may include an instruction flag useful to immediately decide whether or not the shaft control instruction and/or the auxiliary instruction are included in the data. These data are fed to the shaft/auxiliary instruction control decision circuit 10. An object to be controlled is not always to be shaft-controlled. Therefore, when there is no object to be shaft-controlled, i.e., the number of control shafts is 0, the shaft control circuit is not interrogated and only the auxiliary instruction is fed to the auxiliary instruction control circuit 6. As mentioned, the existence of the shaft instruction or the auxiliary instruction is determined by referring to the instruction flag prepared in the instruction decoder circuit 4. Thereafter, the processing is performed in the shaft control circuit 5 and the auxiliary instruction control circuit 6, respectively, to control the objects to be controlled thereby, in the conventional manne. The control operations of the control instruction allocation circuit 9 and the shaft/auxiliary instruction control discrimination circuit 10 are shown by the flow charts in Figs. 2 and 3. Fig. 4 is a time chart of the present invention which is to be compared with Fig. 7. Though, in the described embodiment, a control instruction i instructs an object i to be controlled through a control portion i, it is possible to assign another object for the instruction i. Further, it is possible to control a plurality of objects by the instruction i. As described, according to the present invention, a control can be performed on one or more independently controllable objects on the basis of existence of such objects and the control itself is performed selectively on the shaft and other objects which are not shafts. Therefore, it is possible to control one to all of various objects which are to be operated simultaneously independently, by means of a single numerical control device. Thus, a plurality of objects can be controlled independently from other objects, resulting in high producibility of products.

Claims: 1. A numerical control apparatus including two or more control portions (3) for controlling a plurality of axes (7) in response to control instructions and members (8) other than axes in response to auxiliary control instructions, the numerical control apparatus reading the control instructions block by block, each control portion (3) including an instruction decoder circuit (4), an axis control circuit (5) and an auxiliary instruction control circuit (6), characterised in that the numerical control apparatus includes a control instruction allocation circuit (9) for checking, one by one, which of the axes (7a,7b...7n) and members (8a,8b...8n) exists, and responding to a control instruction for one of the axes (7a,7b...7n) or a member (8a,8b...8n) which does exist by allocating the control instructions arbitrarily to one of the control portions (3a,3b...3n) for controlling the selected axes and or members simultaneously and independently from the remainder, each of the control portions (3) including means (10) for selectively controlling its axis (7) and its member (8) other than an axis. 2. A numerical control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the means (10) for selectively controlling the axis (7) and the member (8) other than an axis includes an axis/auxiliary control discrimination circuit (10) capable of selecting either or both of an axis control instruction and an auxiliary control instruction so that an arbitrary combination of controls may be performed. 3. A numerical control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control portion (3) controls only an axis selectively. 4. A numerical control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control portion (3) controls only a member selectively. 5. A numerical control apparatus according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein a plurality of pairs of axis and member are provided and the corresponding number of control portions operate to select one or more of the pairs and control each pair simultaneously and separately.

Inventors: KUCHIKI, KIYOSHI MITSUBISHI DENKI KABUSHIKI KAISHA
Applicants: MITSUBISHI DENKI KABUSHIKI KAISHA
Application year: 1989
Main classification: G05B19
IPC codes: G05B19