Design of Reconfigurable Machine Tools

In this paper, we present a systematic methodology for designing Reconfigurable Machine Tools (RMTs). The synthesis methodology takes as input a set of functional requirements—a set of process plans and generates a set of kinematically viable reconfigurable machine tools that meet the given design specifications. We present a mathematical framework for synthesis of machine tools using a library of building blocks. The framework is rooted in (a) graph theoretic methods of enumeration of alternate structural configurations and (b) screw theory that enables us to manipulate matrix representations of motions to identify appropriate kinematic building blocks.