Hierarchical Task Based Process Planning For Machine Tool Calibration

A literature search has indicated that artificially intelligent planners have not previously been used to address the planning problem of machine tool calibration, even though there are potential advantages. The complexity of machine tool calibration planning requires the understanding and examination of many influential factors, such as the machine’s configuration and available instrumentation. In this paper we show that machine tool calibration planning can be converted into a Hierarchical Task Network by the process of task decomposition. It is then shown how the Simple Hierarchical Ordered Planner architecture can be used to provide all the identified complete process plans in a given time frame, and secondly, how the branch-and-bound optimisation algorithm can find the optimal solution in the same frame. The results for generating the process plans and optimal process plans for both a three and five axis machine are evaluated to examine the planner’s performance.