The Framework of a Cloud-based CNC System

Machine tool vendors and customers have expectations of the control system of a machine tool being highly scalable, highly adaptable, fault-tolerant, easy to maintain and good protection of process know-how. The current CNC systems are however anything but. This is due to the limitation of conventional CNC's hardware and software. As a possible solution, Control System as a Service (CSaaS) defines a scenario whereby the control system is decoupled from the machine tool and exists in the cloud, so that control of a machine tool becomes a cloud-based service. This gives a machine tool high flexibility and scalability. In this paper, the framework of such a cloud-based CNC system is proposed. Based on the analysis of the typical tasks of a CNC system, there needs to be a division between the tasks executed in the cloud and those in the local. CSaaS is also responsible for transmitting the motion control data over the Internet, which imposes a new challenge, i.e. the inability of the Internet infrastructure in transmitting data in a timely manner and at the same time error-free. The mechanism of dealing with this issue and the modes of the implementation are also discussed.