Real-time detection of the breakage of small diameter drills with wavelet transform

Abstract

This paper presents a real-time tool breakage detection method for small diameter drills using acoustic emission (AE) and current signals. Using the transmitted properties of the AE signal, apparatus for detecting the AE signal for tool breakage monitoring was developed for a machine centre. The features of tool breakage were obtained from the AE signal using typical signal processing methods. The continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) were used to decompose the spindle current signal and the feed current signal, respectively. The tool breakage features were extracted from the decomposed signals. Experimental results show that the proposed monitoring system possessed an excellent real-time capability and a high success rate for the detection of the breakage of small diameter drills using combined AE and current signals.