Patent ID: 7847506

Claim:
A controller provided in a machine tool furnished with at least one moving body, with a drive mechanism for driving the moving body to move it, and with at least one structure provided within a movement region of the moving body, the machine tool controller comprising: a position control unit for receiving an operational signal, externally input through the agency of a manual operation, involving a move-to point and moving speed of the moving body, and for controlling, based on the received operational signal, actuation of the drive mechanism to control moving of the moving body so as to have a move-to point and moving speed accorded with the operational signal; a modeling data memory for storing modeling data relating to two-dimensional or three-dimensional models of, and including at least geometry data defining shapes of, the moving body and structure; a speed limit data memory for storing one or more speed limits of the moving body within one or more speed control regions which are obtained by displacing outwards the contour of one or both of the moving body and structure, said one or more speed limits being defined for each of said speed control regions, and said one or more speed limits being each lower than the speed limit of the moving body outside its corresponding speed control region in the displacement direction; and a travel area checking unit for defining, in the two-dimensional or three-dimensional model of one or both the moving body and structure, the one or more speed control regions, and for executing a process of receiving from said position control unit current position of the moving body, and generating, based on the defined speed control regions, on the received current position, and on the modeling data stored in said modeling data memory, data modeling said moving body having been moved into the current position, to check whether the moving body and the structure will move relative to each other within the speed control regions, and a process of recognizing, when having determined that there will be movement within said speed control regions, the speed control region in which the movement will be, and of recognizing the speed limit, stored in the speed limit data memory, corresponding to the recognized speed control region, and sending the recognized speed limit to said position control unit; wherein the position control unit is configured to move the moving body at the received speed limit when the moving speed in accordance with the operational signal exceeds the speed limit received from the travel area checking unit.