Sensorless tool failure monitoring system for drilling machines

It is well known that on-line tool condition monitoring has great significance in modern manufacturing processes. In order to prevent possible damages to the workpiece or the machine tool, reliable techniques are required providing an on-line response to an unexpected tool failure. Drilling is one of the most fundamental machining operations and two of the most crucial issues related to it are tool wear and fracture. During the spindle process, the motor driver current is related to the drill condition: power consumption is higher for a worn drill in comparison to a sharp drill for the same process. This difference in power consumption can be self-correlated to obtain the resulting waveform variance to provide a merit figure for tool condition. This paper describes a driver current signal analysis to estimate the tool condition by using the discrete Wavelet Transform in order to extract the information from the original cutting force, and through an autocorrelation algorithm evaluate the tool wear in the form of an asymmetry weighting function. The current is monitored from the motor driver to give a sensorless approach. Experimental results are presented to show the algorithm performance, a complete sensorless tool failure system which allows the detection of tool failure as a function of spindle current in real time.