Abstract: Quick change in the tool orientation between neighboring contact points can never be made possible in reality due to the physical limit on the velocity and acceleration of the rotary motions of machine tool, a kinematics based method is presented in this research to solve this problem. The presented algorithm will automatically generate an interference-free inclination angle for selected machine tool, and the rotation angle will increase or decrease with the inclination angle increment. After the interference-free region and angular-velocity-feasible-region are generated, optimized tool orientation is chosen from the intersection of the two regions. If the intersection is null, backward-feasible-region will be calculated to ensure the intersection is non-null. Example shows that the method is feasible and the capability of the machine tool can be fully explored.

Key words: 5-axis machining, Freeform surface, Kinematics of machine tool, Tool orientation optimization