‘Collision-free Tool Motion Planning for 5-Axis CNC Machining with Toroidal Cutters’ wins Best Paper Award at the SPM 2024

• This paper is written these member of BCAM’s MATHDES Mathematical Design, Modelling and Simulations Research Line: Juan Zaragoza Chichell (PhD at BCAM), Michal Bizzarri (Postdoc Fellow at BCAM) and Michael Bartoň (Group Leader. Ikerbasque Research Associate at BCAM); and Alena Rečková (Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of West Bohemia); and was published by Elsevier (August, 2024).
• The SPM is a key event and an international conference series organized annually with the support of the Solid Modeling Association (SMA).

BCAM is thrilled to announce that the paper titled "Collision-free Tool Motion Planning for 5-Axis CNC Machining with Toroidal Cutters" has been honored with the Best Paper Award at the Symposium on Solid and Physical Modeling (SPM 2024)

Under the title ‘Collision-free Tool Motion Planning for 5-Axis CNC Machining with Toroidal Cutters’, this paper is written these member of BCAM’s MATHDES Mathematical Design, Modelling and Simulations Research Line: Juan Zaragoza Chichell (PhD at BCAM), Michal Bizzarri (Postdoc Fellow at BCAM) and Michael Bartoň (Group Leader. Ikerbasque Research Associate at BCAM); and Alena Rečková (Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of West Bohemia); and was published by Elsevier (August, 2024).

The Symposium on Solid and Physical Modeling (SPM) is a key event and an international conference series organized annually with the support of the Solid Modeling Association (SMA). SPM'24 was hosted at Concordia University, in the summer 2024. The conference aims at all aspects of geometric and physical modeling, and their application in design, analysis and manufacturing, as well as in biomedical, geophysical, digital entertainment, and other areas. The conference serves also as a ceremony for awarding the 2024 Pierre Bézier Prize for contributions to solid, shape, and physical modeling.

The Best Paper Award was presented during the conference held under the auspices of the SPM community, showcasing groundbreaking advancements in computational design and modeling. Out of 48 submissions, only 13 were selected for presentation at the conference and subsequent publication in a special issue of Computer-Aided Design (CAD). Among these exceptional contributions, this work stood out for its innovation and impact, earning the top distinction.

This achievement reflects the outstanding work of the entire team and reinforces BCAM's leadership in cutting-edge computational research. The Center is proud of this remarkable accomplishment and look forward to continuing to make strides in advancing scientific knowledge. 

Abstract: 

Collision detection is a crucial part of CNC machining, however, many state-of-the-art algorithms test collisions as a post-process, after the path-planning stage, or use conservative approaches that result in low machining accuracy in the neighborhood of the cutter’s contact paths. We propose a fast collision detection test that does not require a costly construction of the configuration space nor high-resolution sampling of the cutter’s axis and uses the information of the neighboring points to efficiently prune away points of the axis that cannot cause collisions. The proposed collision detection test is incorporated directly as a part of the tool motion-planning stage, enabling design of highly-accurate motions of a toroidal cutting tool along free-form geometries. We validate our algorithm on a variety of benchmark surfaces, showing that our results provide high-quality approximations with provably non-colliding motions.

Read the award winning paper here.