Deep representation learning and reinforcement learning for workpiece setup optimization in CNC milling

Production Engineering, vol. 17, pp. 847–859

Abstract

Abstract Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling is a commonly used manufacturing process with a high level of automation. Nevertheless, setting up a new CNC milling process involves multiple development steps relying heavily on human expertise. In this work, we focus on positioning and orientation of the workpiece (WP) in the working space of a CNC milling machine and propose a deep learning approach to speed up this process significantly. The selection of the WP’s setup depends on the chosen milling technological process, the geometry of the WP, and the capabilities of the considered CNC machining. It directly impacts the milling quality, machine wear, and overall energy consumption. Our approach relies on representation learning of the milling technological process with the subsequent use of reinforcement learning (RL) for the WP positioning and orientation. Solutions proposed by the RL agent are used as a warm start for simple hill-climbing heuristics, which boosts overall performance while keeping the overall number of search iterations low. The novelty of the developed approach is the ability to conduct the WP setup optimization covering both WP positioning and orientation while ensuring the axis collision avoidance, minimization of the axis traveled distances and improving the dynamic characteristics of the milling process with no input from human experts. Experiments show the potential of the proposed learning-based approach to generate almost comparably good WP setups order of magnitude faster than common metaheuristics, such as genetic algorithms (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSA).

Authors 6

1. Владимир Самсонов corresponding Aachen Chair of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Chair of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering (WZL-MQ/IMA), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

2. Enslin Chrismarie Aachen Chair of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Chair of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering (WZL-MQ/IMA), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

3. Hans-Georg Köpken

   Siemens (Germany)

   Affiliation as printed

   Digital Industries, Siemens AG, Erlangen, Germany

4. Schirin Bär Aachen Chair of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Chair of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering (WZL-MQ/IMA), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

5. Daniel Lütticke Aachen Chair of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Chair of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering (WZL-MQ/IMA), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

6. Tobias Meisen

   University of Wuppertal

   Affiliation as printed

   Chair of Technologies and Management of Digital Transformation, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany