An intelligent task programming system for modular manufacturing machines

Modular manufacturing machines characterised by their configuration flexibility and low initial investment have increasingly gained more recognition as one of the flexible and responsive manufacturing machinery in current competitive manufacturing industry. Programming of a modular machine is a very important part of an entire machine design and simulation environment. This paper focuses on the programming issue of a modular machine design and simulation environment. A programming study is made of the features of modular machines in manufacturing, and a general systematic approach towards high level utilisation and control of modular machines is outlined. A three-level machine task programming approach within the simulation environment is described and finally an example task program and its execution in simulation environment is illustrated to demonstrate the system capability.