Networked Manufacturing Environment Research Articles

Integration of manufacturing services into virtual environments over the internet

Virtual reality (VR) is a rapidly developing technology that has a wide spectrum of industrial and commercial applications. Networked (distributed or shared) virtual environments (VE) are of growing interest to modern manufacturing industry; a dominating use of networked virtual manufacturing environments (VMEs) is on-line visualisation and collaborative control of 3D information. This has to be supported by real-time data transfer. To meet a broad range of common requirements for Internet-based VE communications, particularly for virtual manufacturing and collaborative design and control, this paper presents a networked virtual environment system that is designed to support networked virtual design and manufacturing. The system is implemented with manufacturing message specification (MMS) standards so as to integrate a range of manufacturing services into networked VEs over the Internet.

Implementing Manufacturing Message Specifications (MMS) within collaborative virtual environments over the Internet

Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that has many potential applications in manufacturing. Networked or shared virtual environments (VE) are of growing interest in modern manufacturing, which is making increasing use of virtual reality technology. An important feature of networked VEs is the way in which they control and share 3D information, and the support of this by real-time data transfer. The bottleneck of transferring 3D data in real-time between networked VEs is the performance of networking protocols. This paper proposes a novel approach to implementing the Manufacturing Message Specifications (MMS), an ISO/IEC 9506 communication standard and presents a Manufacturing Message Transfer Protocol (MMTP), suitable for a broad range of Internet-based VE communication applications - in particular, virtual manufacturing collaborative design and control. An Internet communication system is described that can support networked virtual manufacturing environments within the framework of the Manufacturing Message Specifications (MMS) Standard.

Tool Path Planning for Avoiding Exit Burrs

Milling exit burrs usually form along the edges of a workpiece when the tool leaves the part while removing stock material. One of the most efficient methods for minimizing exit burrs is to prevent the tool from exiting the workpiece during material removal. This paper describes a systematic framework to generate tool paths that always enter a part, which is not a thin structure, in a planar milling operation. Three distinct tool exit conditions are analyzed for polygonal parts. A test criterion is then proposed to examine the occurrence of tool exits. For each condition, a tool path planning scheme is developed to avoid tool exits. These schemes are proved to be effective using the test criterion. This work is integrated into a networked manufacturing environment as a burr agent. Test parts are cut to demonstrate that this framework enhances edge quality by minimizing tool exits.